As Jews celebrate their freedom this Passover, my fellow Hamas hostages still lack theirs

My name is Keith Siegel. I am an American grandfather who survived 484 days in Gaza.

On October 7, 2023, my wife Aviva and I were violently abducted from our home by Hamas terrorists. I was shot in the hand and broke some ribs during the kidnapping, injuries not treated until my return to Israel.

Aviva was released after 51 days. Our parting words were a promise to remain strong for each other and survive. I was finally released in February, after enduring nearly 16 months in captivity. 

I’m sharing my story because as Jews around the world prepare for Passover, the festival of freedom, we must remember the 59 hostages in Gaza who still lack that freedom — and what they are facing: physical abuse, psychological torture, isolation, and deprivation of basic necessities.

My experience was brutal: I was held in the suffocating heat of tunnels 130 feet underground. I witnessed extreme violence — hostages handcuffed, beaten, and sexually assaulted.

A female hostage was gagged and bound while her feet were beaten with metal rods. I stood paralyzed, unable to help.

These memories of medieval torture still haunt me to this day.

Contrary to popular belief, the terrorists who held me were not starving; they ate well while we starved. I would make four bites of rice last for 20 bites, eating slowly to savor every morsel of food. By the time I was released, I weighed just 125 pounds, down from about 190.

I knew resistance meant death. I could not fight or escape. I was deep inside Gaza; where could I go?

I didn’t resist when they kicked or spat on me. Nor when they shaved my body to humiliate me.

Not even when one locked me in a room, pointed a pistol at my head and said, “I’m going to kill you now.”

When forced to make propaganda videos, I complied.

When they tried to convert me to Islam, I recited their phrases.  

I did find one small space of control: I refused to beg.

The worse they treated me — the beatings, starvation, humiliation — the less I wanted to ask for anything.

For six months of my captivity, I was completely alone in isolation.

To keep myself mentally strong, I counted days by the mosque’s calls to prayer. I sang James Taylor songs in my mind. I held daily conversations with my family in my head, including with my 96-year-old mother in North Carolina. Sadly, she passed away during my captivity, and I never had a final chance to hug her goodbye.

After more than a year of this nightmare, President Donald Trump was elected, and everything changed overnight.

His victory transformed my fate and that of 37 other hostages. Within days, negotiations resumed, and the deal that brought me home was signed.

When finally released, I emerged physically broken, but I had accomplished my mission: fulfilling my promise to Aviva to survive.

Just weeks after my release, I had the honor of meeting President Trump in person.

Despite my weakened condition, I knew I had to make the journey. It wasn’t easy to board a plane so soon after leaving those suffocating tunnels in Gaza. But I had to do it, not just to thank the man who saved my life, but for those I left behind.

As President Trump grasped my hand, I saw in his eyes a genuine determination to finish what he started and bring everyone home.

Other hostages released during the deal, like me, have described the dire conditions faced by those still in captivity: chained in filth and squalor in tiny tunnels, without air, light, sanitation, food, or water — every day, another day of unimaginable suffering.

I think constantly of Matan Angrest, who spent weeks with me in captivity before we were separated. He was just 21 when captured.

How is he surviving now, so many months later? Does he still have that spark of hope in his eyes? Or has it dimmed after watching hostage after hostage being released while he remains?

Matan and the others need America’s continued pressure to bring them home.

As an American, I’m proud to have President Trump as my president. Thanks to him, I was reunited with my wife, children, and grandchildren.

Please, President Trump, continue the extraordinary work you’ve done. Get us a deal to bring them all back — those who are still living and those who have tragically lost their lives and deserve proper burial.

We cannot abandon these people to the darkness I have just escaped.

I managed to survive 484 days in captivity, but those still trapped in Hamas’s tunnels won’t be able to hold on much longer.

I am so lucky to be able to recite the story of the Passover exodus with my family this year. But though I may appear free, none of us truly are, until all the hostages return home.