Former hostage Nili Margalit told France’s Le Point magazine on Monday that Palestinian civilians kidnapped her on October 7 and trafficked her to Hamas.
“They negotiated with Hamas to sell me. When they were paid, I was taken straight into a tunnel,” she said.
The 42-year-old from Kibbutz Nir Oz interviewed with the magazine as part of a larger European tour to raise awareness of the Israelis remaining in captivity.
Describing how she was awoken at 6:30 am by rocket sirens, Margalit recounted how there were floods of messages warning her of terrorists in her kibbutz. Less than 3 hours later, Palestinian civilian terrorists set fire to her home and dragged her from her safe room.
“They exploded plates, turned the house upside down, and started a fire,” she told the magazine.
After being kidnapped, Margalit described how she was driven into Gaza wrapped in a white sheet. She said that the Palestinian civilian kidnappers were holding Kalashnikov rifles.
After arriving to the border, Margalit said she was transferred to a car and taken to Khan Yunis where she was sold to Hamas.
Margalit said that crowds of civilians cheered and her kidnappers were ecstatic.
Once in Hamas custody, Margalit was taken to a “reception room” in a tunnel where she said she saw approximately 30 fellow hostages - some also from Nir Oz.
The Israeli men had swollen faces and injured legs from being dragged on motorcycles, she recalled.
Divided into small groups, Margalit informed her captors that she was an emergency room nurse. “Helping was my way of surviving,” she said.
She was then transported to a dormitory for 10 hostages, where she said she was fed with only bread and rice.
“There were shouting matches, crying, laughing, it's normal when you put ten people in the same room, we're human! But we always supported each other,” she recalled. “At first, I told myself it would only last two days. Then I understood that Israel would never pay for so many hostages. This depressed some of us. We had to hold on psychologically.”