Former Israeli hostage Eitan Horn reveals how Hamas mentally abused him and his brother in Gaza

Former hostage Eitan Horn revealed in an interview aired on Sunday that his Hamas captors mentally abused him and his brother Iair by asking who “deserves” to be set free. The Horn brothers were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Iair was released in February 2025, while Eitan, who was left behind, recalled how he survived 738 days in captivity before being freed in an American-brokered ceasefire in October 2025. He was among the last 20 living Israeli hostages to be released from Gaza.

Eitan revealed that the Hamas captors initially held him and his brother Iair separately.

“I saw him from afar. We looked at each other and very quickly understood that we weren’t allowed to say we were brothers,” Eitan recalled, sensing quickly that their relationship would be used against them.

“We didn’t open our mouths. We just continued. He saw me, he calmed down, and that gave us strength to keep going,” he explained.

The Horn brothers who immigrated from Argentina to Israel, were reunited after around 50 days in captivity.

Eitan revealed that they both supported each other mentally to keep their spirits alive.

“Before each shower, and also after, he would ask me if I remembered to put soap on my belly button and clean it,” he said. “It gave me a smile, and it’s a silly thing."

While trying to joke, Iair admitted that it was sometimes impossible during the difficult captivity in Gaza.

“We could joke, but the few times I tried to really laugh, to laugh out loud, it was impossible,” he recalled. “I don’t know, maybe the lack of oxygen, or I don’t know what. The laughter just didn’t come out,” he explained.

Eitan revealed that Hamas captors once forced him, his brothers and other hostages to walk for 12 hours through the subterranean tunnel maze.

“And it was after two months in which we ate a pita and a half a day,” Eitan said. “The tunnel was very narrow. And there were quite a few sections where the tunnel was half a meter high,” he continued.

He stressed the support and assistance that he received from his brother and fellow hostages.

“Or Iair would drag me along the floor, because I couldn’t walk anymore. And David [Cunio] pushed me from behind. And Ofer [Calderon] encouraged me, ‘yalla, you can do it, yalla, you can do it.”

Eitan tried to explain the experience of living for years in tunnels.

“I’ve been in tunnels for two years,” he said, adding “without sun, without air, without night or day, without smells, without hearing birds. To be there for two years like we were, with everything we went through – no one will ever understand that.”

He emphasized that both he and his brother refused to give up their living principles during the captivity.

“Despite the mental abuse, as a group, we never abandoned our principles. None of us named ourselves among the two who should leave. Then, after a week, comes the happiest moment in these two years – they announce that Iair is going home. That he’s saved,” Eitan recalled with tears in his eyes.

“And now I can be calmer, because I don’t have to worry about my brother,” he said. “But I know that for Iair, the real nightmare is just beginning,” he added. The brothers were reunited in Israel last October. Later that month, the newly freed Eitan led the crowd in singing the Israeli national anthem during a soccer game.