Former Israeli hostage reveals Gaza captor threatened to kill her unless her father paid ransom

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Former Israeli hostage Moran Stela Yanai recently revealed her captor in Gaza contacted her father and threatened to kill her unless the father paid a ransom for her. During the unprecedented invasion and terror attack on Oct. 7, more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 hostages, dead and alive, were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken into Gaza.

Hamas primarily intended to use the Israeli hostages as bargaining chips to secure the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. However, Palestinian civilians who cooperated with Hamas allegedly saw a financial opportunity to hold Israeli hostages.

Yanai was released in November 2023 during the hostage-release deal without any ransom payment. About 100 Israelis and foreign nationals were released from captivity in Gaza as part of the deal.

Yanai recalled that before her release, one of her captors asked her whether her father loved her.

“Of course, more than anything,” Yanai responded. The terrorist then asked how much the father would be willing to pay for her release. Yanai responded that her father would likely pay any amount to see the release of his daughter.

“I understood very quickly that maybe they were really contacting our parents and asking for money, and I made it clear to him at that moment that my father would pay anything for me,” Yanai said during an interview with Israel's Channel 12.

When she returned home to Israel, Yanai's father confirmed that a captor, who called himself “Khan,” wrote threatening WhatsApp messages written in broken English and Hebrew to her father, demanding money for the release of his daughter. In an act of psychological warfare, her captor also sent a photo of Yanai before the kidnapping with a warning to her father: “One hour if you want to see her alive.”

While the father prepared to pay for the release of his daughter, the terrorist cut off all communication.

“It’s part of the psychological games they play with us. They don’t just toy with us, they toy with our families. It doesn’t end with ‘we murdered [people], we took [people], and we left.’ They continue to abuse us and continue to torment our families,” Yanai said.

After her return home, Yanai hinted that she had been sexually abused by her captors while she was held hostage. Most of the released and rescued Israeli hostages have stated that they suffered physically and mentally during their captivity.

After more than 10 months of war, 104 of the hostages who were kidnapped on Oct. 7 are still believed to be held in captivity in Gaza. It is unclear how many of them are still alive, but the Israeli military has confirmed the deaths of at least 34 remaining hostages in Gaza.

On Tuesday, the IDF and Shin Bet forces rescued Bedouin-Israeli hostage Farhan al-Qadi, who was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7. Al-Qadi, who hails from the town of Rahat, is the eighth hostage the IDF has rescued alive from Gaza since the beginning of the ground operations in October.

Unlike the previous seven rescuees, al-Qadi was the first Israeli hostage to be discovered in an underground tunnel, posing an additional set of challenges for Israeli forces.