Ex-hostage talks about his time in the hands of Hamas

Louis Har was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023. After 129 days, the military freed the 71-year-old. Now he tells us what he experienced during that time.

It’s February 12th, two o’clock in the morning: Soldiers from the special unit “Shayetet 13” free two hostages from Hamas near Rafah. “I have them, they’re okay,” a soldier announces to the command control center. Louis Har is one of those rescued. A soldier asks him how he is. “It’s like a shock, but it’s all good,” he replies.

Almost three months after this spectacular rescue operation, Louis Har remembers in an interview with ARD of this moment. At that time he asked the soldier whether this was real or a film. He replied: “We have come to bring you back to your family.”

Hamas fighters kidnap him and his family partner

We meet Louis Har in an apartment in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. As a young man, he emigrated to Israel from Argentina. On October 7, the day of the Hamas attack, Louis Har was in a kibbutz not far from the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Several family members were sleeping in the house. In the morning they heard sirens and the sounds of fighting. A little later, terrorists broke into the house of his partner Clara Marman. Both flee into the shelter, but Hamas fighters fire at the door.

“We were in the blind spot, so the bullets missed us,” says Har. It was close. “We were lying on the floor and hugging each other.” Then the fighters came into the shelter and fired into the air. “Because we were down, the bullets didn’t hit us,” Har recalls. “We shouted: Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”

Barefoot through the Hamas tunnels

Louis Har, his partner Clara Marman, two of their siblings and their niece went to the Gaza Strip in the back of a Toyota pickup truck. During the journey they sat on weapons and grenades. Afterwards they walk barefoot for three hours through dark, unpaved tunnels.

In Rafah they had to dress in Arab clothing, says Har. They were then taken to an apartment where Louis Har will stay until he is rescued. Dangerous situations arise again and again. One of the guards repeatedly provoked him and the other hostages in the apartment.

“He was harassing the girl who was with us. He said that he was single and would like to marry her. He kept making this motion as if he was putting the ring on her. But we told her to turn around, “Pretending to be asleep, not answering him, not worrying. But she was crying, it was really dangerous,” says Har.

“There was no shortage of stories”

Louis Har has only given a few interviews so far. He is the first hostage freed by the military to speak to a German medium. The 71-year-old appears composed, even if his emotions keep catching up with him.

He was in the hands of the terrorists for 129 days, crammed into a small room that he only leaves to go to the kitchen or the toilet. During this time he became a storyteller. This was how the group passed the endless hours in which they sat in the small room.

He quietly talked to his friends about his childhood in Argentina. Something new every day. “The girl always wanted to know more. I even talked about the births of my children. There was no shortage of stories,” he tells us now.

He cooked for hostages and guards

And he became a chef. The guards would have Brought produce, such as a can of peas. At first there were eggs, but then there weren’t any more, says Louis Har. “There were days when we only ate one pita bread all day.” If there was something he could cook with, he did it. “I cooked, for us and also for her.”

He was imprisoned for 129 days. None of the hostages released so far had been kidnapped longer than Louis Har. 129 days in which he continually longed for his family. “What I missed most was hugging my grandchildren, feeling them. I imagined the warmth of their embrace.” He would have cried, but he didn’t want to burden Fernando, another male hostage, with that. Louis Har told him, “Hey, something in the eye is bothering me.”

In November 2023, the two women and the girl were released as part of the ceasefire. Louis Har and Fernando remained prisoners. His wife Clara initially wanted to stay with him. But Har told her to go: “It was important that she got out. It was the best thing that could have happened. It gave us hope that we could get out too,” he says.

“The memories always come back”

After more than four months in the hands of Hamas, that was the case. Just a few hours after the spectacular rescue operation, Har was able to hug his loved ones again. As he talks about it, tears well up in his eyes. Just the memory of the feeling of hugging his family again on the day of his rescue overwhelms him.

Almost three months have passed since his liberation. On the outside it appears stable. Nevertheless, the 129 days in the hands of the Hamas terrorists have left their mark. Louis Har reports that he has trouble sleeping, “the memories keep coming back, sometimes I cry for no reason, like just now. I think it will take years for us to get over it, if that ever happens.”

“I can’t feel sorry for anyone today”

What does he feel when he thinks about the suffering in the Gaza Strip? Of the many thousands of deaths in this war? As a former hostage, can you feel compassion for the people in the Gaza Strip?

Now only one thing is important to him: he wants to help the remaining hostages come home. Here he sees the government as responsible and asks “that they bring back the 133 hostages. No matter how, as quickly as possible. No matter what the price.”