Noga Weiss “pretended to laugh” when one of the gunmen bought her a ring and said he would marry her and now, she’s been released after 50 days of hell in captivity
An Israeli teenage hostage held by Hamas was told by one of the gunmen he would marry her and she would have his children, she has revealed.
Noga Weiss, 18, was released in a hostage and prisoner release deal after 50 days of hell in captivity, knowing her father IIlan had been murdered.
But one of her captors bought her a ring and vowed she would remain in Gaza with him even after other hostages had been released. Ms Weiss said in an Israeli Channel 12 interview: “He gave me a ring on day 14 and I stayed with him until day 50. He told me, ‘Everyone will be released, but you will stay here with me and have my children.”
Asked how she responded, Noga said: “I pretended to laugh so he wouldn’t shoot me in the head.” She was reunited with her mother Shiri, who she had believed was dead, when Hamas brought her into a room dressed in a Hijab.
Ms Weiss added: “One of the Hamas members said he loves me, he wants to marry me and brought my mother to me so she would approve of our marriage. A woman dressed as an Arab entered, and I realised it’s my mother.
Her mother rejected the proposal, eventually shouting at the Hamas man, explained one of Noga’s two sisters Meytal, who sat in on the interview.
“I thought they killed her, I thought I was alone. Suddenly she’s alive, and I’m no longer alone.”
She said women captives were moved around Gaza at night, dressed in Hijabs and with fighters holding their hands to deceive Israeli surveillance into believing it was a Palestinian couple. Weiss says that she “can’t digest it, neither then nor now.
“People don’t understand the feeling of fear. I was 50 days, 24/7, with the thought that they would get tired and come shoot me, or they wouldn’t need me in the end. Let’s say at night they lock us in the room, so they open the door in the middle of the night and shoot us without us knowing.”
She said that as long as there are hostages in the strip, she can’t mourn her father, adding: “They are there for an indescribable amount of time. At one point, they brought us half a litre of water for two days. It does not make sense. You can’t survive like this for 200 days.”
