Released hostage Emily Damari said that when she was in captivity, her Hamas captors couldn't know that she preferred women, she revealed in an N12 interview published on Sunday.
"They must not know such a thing. From their perspective, they think it's a sickness," she said.
Damari added that she had questioned her Hamas captor what he would do if he discovered his brother was gay, to which he responded that he would "murder him."
She also revealed that during captivity, she was questioned why she wasn't married.
"That's just how it is," she told her captor. "I keep to myself, I'm a good girl."
Damari said that her captors gave her nicknames, calling her "Saja'iya, which means hero - they told me, I told them that I'm not, but it stuck for a while, and then they referred to me as John Cena from the WWE."
Damari said that she would do a lot of sit-ups to release energy while held hostage, and told N12 that she even asked her captors how the underground tunnels in Gaza were built.
Feeling full of guilt
Damari also noted in the interview her feelings of guilt. "Getting on the plane, sitting down, eating, drinking - everything comes with a lot of guilt," she said, acknowledging the 58 hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
She specifically mentioned the hostage twins, Gali and Ziv Berman. Damari previously mentioned them numerous times on social media and called for their release. She told N12 that she had called Gali to come over to her home the morning they were both taken hostage and brought into Gaza alongside Ziv.
She then mentions that she was separated from the twins and taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza and sedated by a doctor there. She then says that when she woke up, the doctor informed her she was missing two fingers.
"I respond, ‘Cool... I’m a hostage in Gaza, I’m missing two fingers—what could be worse?" she told N12.
N12 later then spoke with Romi Gonen, who said that she first met Damari at Shifa Hospital, but they were then taken to different places to be held captive, before reuniting 40 days later inside Gaza.
Being held hostage in a civilian family's home
Damari said that days after she was abducted, she ended up being held in a civilian family home that had children. She was held there with Ziv and other hostages, she added, noting that she could hear airstrikes every day.
"One day, a blast came and completely blew up the house. I saw it with my own eyes—I was in the room with Ziv, and I saw from the window a building a meter away engulfed in flames." She, Ziv, and the other hostages were taken to different houses after the blast, 40 days after their abduction.
The day she was separated from Ziv was also the day she reunited with Romi Gonen, who recognized her instantly, she told N12. When she was taken from the destroyed house to an underground tunnel, she saw Gonen, Liri Albag, Agam Berger, and two children - Dafna and Ela Elyakim.
Damari and Gonen then revealed to N12 that they had briefly considered suicide while in captivity.
Damari was released from Hamas captivity in January alongside Gonen and hostage Doron Steinbrecher, who all spent nearly 500 days in Gaza.