Eitan Yahalomi, 12, walks with his mother at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, after being released from Gaza where he was kept hostage following the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Israel. Photo: Spokesperson unit of Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

The aunt of a 12-year-old boy who was released from captivity in Gaza on Monday night has revealed disturbing details of threats and psychological abuse inflicted on her nephew by Hamas terrorists, which included forcing him to watch videos of the atrocities committed on Oct. 7.

In an interview with French TV channel BFM, Eitan Yahalomi’s aunt, Devora Cohen, said, “Whenever a child hostage cried, the terrorists would threaten them with rifles to silence them.”

Yahalomi, a dual Israeli-French citizen, was released on Monday, 52 days after his abduction, as part of a temporary ceasefire and hostage-prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.

“Perhaps I was naïve, but I wanted to hope that they were treating him well,” said Cohen. “I was wrong. They are monsters.”

For the first 16 days of captivity, Yahalomi was left in solitary confinement in a room underground, his grandmother, Esther Yahalomi, told the Haaretz daily.

After a month he was joined by other child hostages at a different location, which was much easier for him because his kindergarten teacher was also there. But the children were forced to watch the Oct. 7 massacre — in which Hamas-led terrorists murdered over 1,200 people across southern Israel and took more than 240 hostages — on film in silence, and any cries they made resulted in threats at gunpoint.

“The Hamas terrorists forced him to watch films of the horrors, the kind that no one wants to see, they forced him to watch them,” Cohen said.

Yahalomi’s arrival in Gaza was also met with hostility from Palestinian civilians, who subjected the 12-year-old to physical abuse, Cohen said.

“When he arrived in Gaza, all the residents, everyone, beat him. He is a 12-year-old boy,” she said. “We’re talking about a child of 12.”

Yahalomi was initially captured along with his mother and two sisters, but they successfully escaped and returned to Israel, while Eitan was transported into Gaza on a separate moped.

His father, Ohad, who sustained gunshot wounds during a shootout with Hamas terrorists, was also taken captive and remains in Gaza.

Separately, Thomas Hand, the father of 9-year-old Emily Hand who was released by Hamas on Sunday evening, opened up about his daughter’s condition over the last two days.

In an emotional interview with CNN, Hand said Emily was barely audible.

“The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was she was just whispering. You couldn’t hear her. I had to put my ear on her lips,” he said. “She’d been conditioned [by her captors] not to make any noise.”

When Hand asked Emily how long she thought she had been in captivity, she said she had been held hostage for an entire year.

“Apart from the whispering, that was a punch in the guts. A year,” Hand said.

Hand added that his daughter cried herself to sleep.

“Last night she cried until her face was red and blotchy; she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want any comfort. I guess she’s forgotten how to be comforted,” he said. “She went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up and quietly cried.”

Hamas is making efforts to change its image in light of the widespread awareness of its barbarity. This includes directing released hostages to smile and wave, as observed in videos of the hostages being transferred to Red Cross vehicles, which include audible directives by the masked terrorists to “keep waving.”

Some in the international media seem to have fallen prey to Hamas’ theatrics. Responding to an Israeli report that Yahya Sinwar — the Hamas leader in Gaza and mastermind behind the Oct. 7 massacre — met with Israeli hostages and told them in Hebrew that “nothing would happen” to them, veteran Sky News journalist Dominic Waghorn posted on X/Twitter that it “undermines the Israeli Hamas = ISIS storyline.”

Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar met with the Israeli hostages a day after they were taken in tunnels under Gaza and told them they would not be harmed and would be returned as part of a hostage deal. Undermines the Israeli Hamas = ISIS storyline.

— Dominic Waghorn (@DominicWaghorn) November 28, 2023

Waghorn went on to claim that the hostages were “held in reasonable conditions, reportedly, though those held above ground lived with the fear of being killed in Israel’s bombardment.”