Former hostage reveals Hamas terrorist demanded marriage, she stay in Gaza

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Author: JERUSALEM POST STAFF
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Weiss, who was released on her 50th day in captivity as part of a temporary ceasefire agreement, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Beeri on October 7

After 14 days in captivity, her captor gave her a ring and demanded that she stay in Gaza to marry him and have his children.

"He told me, 'Everyone will be released, but you will stay here with me and have my children,'" she recalled. "I pretended to laugh so he wouldn't shoot me in the head."

While Weiss and her mother Shiri were held captive separately, she told the source that the pair were reunited so the captor could ask Weiss's mother for approval for the marriage.

"I thought she'd been murdered, I thought I was alone. Suddenly, she's alive, and I'm not alone," Weiss said on being reunited with her mother.

"People don't understand the feeling of fear," Weiss said. "I was 50 days, 24/7, with the thought that they would get tired of me and just shoot me or that they wouldn't need me in the end, or that they would shoot us while we slept in the middle of the night.

"Their moods changed so quickly. One minute they played with us and laughed, the next they'd come in with a gun. You always had to please them."

Speaking of the conditions, Weiss said at one point they were left with only half a bottle of water to last them two days.

What happened to the Weiss family on October 7?

The Weiss family hid in their safe room on October 7, when Hamas terrorists began firing bullets at the door "started shooting at the door, something like 40 shots until they managed to get in," Weiss said.

The young woman was hiding alongside her 53-year-old mother.

"We saw the conversations on WhatsApp and understood what...