Former hostage Ron Krivoi opened up to N12, now over a year since he was released in the November deal, about the abuse he experienced and witnessed while in Hamas captivity in hopes that his testimony will help Matan Angrest, who remains captive in Gaza.
The 27-year-old Russian-Israeli shared on Friday details of his brief, four-day escape from his terrorist abductors in Gaza. After the residential building he was staying in was shelled, Krivoi fled to nearby fields, until he was discovered by Palestinian civilians who attacked him.
"When I was alone outside, no one saw me, and then when someone saw me - it didn't end well,” he recalled to N12. “People there, when they caught me, beat me up. It's not something simple, I experienced something there... When they caught me and brought me back, those people who beat me were ordinary Gazans, who took out all their frustration on me."
Back in the custody of terrorists, Krivoi recalled the difficult conditions he was held in. "These are not the tunnels you see in the pictures. We were inside something really small, deep, underground. We didn't even have a floor, we were on sand and mattresses that were all moldy. We were inside a really, really small cage. Really about five feet by five feet, and you have to lie down in it and rest in it, and you can't stand up,” he shared. “There's no height, no toilet, no food. There were five of us, we ate one plate with some canned goods, and a pita that we distributed to everyone. I was there for 51 days, and I lost nine kilograms of my body weight."
Hamas's abuse against Matan Angrest
It was under those cramped conditions that Krivoi met a severely wounded Angrest. He was caught in an explosion and then taken by the invading terrorists, who immediately began beating and interrogating him until he fainted.
“The interrogations he went through were actually in Israeli territory, where it started - they had already connected him to a battery on the way and tried to wake him up, using car batteries to electrocute him at first," he explained. "This is what he remembers - when he wakes up, he sees a battery electrocuting him, and once again loses consciousness. And no matter what they did, he was already unconscious. They were unable to interrogate him. He was probably not in a state to talk, because he was really, really injured. His injuries are very serious," Krivoi told N12.
At the time, Angrest’s hand was reportedly paralyzed - something that Krivoi believes has yet to heal, evidenced by a recent hostage video released of him.
"This is it, this is our fear, that this hand is paralyzed. We received medical reports - fractures in the eye socket, broken nose, mouth, jaw," Krivoi said. "He was abused. The torture and abuse they inflicted on him… It's something that even if a person tries to imagine, he will never be able to imagine what he goes through there.
"He had burns on his fingers. Something I've never seen. I've never seen a burn like that. I've never seen anything like that. It looked like it was from acid, or something like that, like what hit him wasn't a regular fire. It really didn't look like a burn. It was something terrible."
Krivoi recalled to N12 how Angrest was reconnected to batteries multiple times as Hamas tried to torture him for information - the pain forcing his companion to frequently lose consciousness.
Soldiers, Krivoi explained, received even harsher treatment than civilians held by the terror group.
In recent months, Krivoi said he has attempted to get in touch with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to directly tell him of Angrest’s severe injuries - efforts that have allegedly yet to have been returned by the prime minister.
While the November deal saw the return of mostly women, children, and the elderly abducted on October 7, Krivoi shared that it was only his Russian citizenship that saved him from the prolonged captivity currently being experienced by the remaining 59 male hostages.
"I know that if I didn't have Russian citizenship, I could still be with Matan there in the tunnel today. I'm here because of a miracle - Putin is the one who brought me home. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be back here today, so we're prodigals,” he shared.
When a terrorist came to collect those being released in the deal, he asked the hostages who among them was Russian. "For a moment I was afraid to answer, and then he asked again. I realized that I was the only one who looked Russian here, and I raised my hand, and then he told me, 'You're going home tomorrow," he recounted.