Mother of released Israeli hostage Daniella Gilboa reveals she was forced by her Hamas captors to stage her own death

Hamas forced the former Israeli hostage Daniella Gilboa to stage and film her own death, her mother Orly revealed in an interview on Wednesday with Israeli Channel 12. Gilboa was one of several female IDF soldiers who were brutally kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from their military base Nahal Oz close to the Gaza border on Oct. 7, 2023. 

"One of the captors simply came with a camera and told her: 'Today we're filming you dead.' She begged for her life and asked him not to do it," Orly recalled. “When she saw me and my husband for the first time, she apologized for what she made us feel during this whole period," the mother added. 

Last July, Hamas released a propaganda video featuring Daniella Gilboa, which her family agreed to share with the Israeli public. 

“I was kidnapped on October 7 from the Nahal Oz base,” Daniella stated in the staged video. “I have been a prisoner of Hamas for 107 days and I don’t know when or if at all I will return home,” she continued. “I am under bombardment 24 hours a day. I am very, very afraid for my life. On one occasion you almost killed me with your bombings,” Gilboa said in the staged video, referring to the Israeli military’s operations against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. 

In November 2024, Hamas falsely claimed that Daniella Gilboa had been killed by fire from the Israel Defense Forces. The Jihadist terror group stated that “one of the enemy’s female prisoners was killed in an area that is under Zionist aggression in the northern Gaza Strip, while the danger still threatens the life of another female prisoner who was with her.”

Hamas’ propaganda stunt also showed blurred images of her body covered in debris. The Israeli military conducted an investigation but stressed at the time that it was not able to confirm Hamas’ claim of Gilboa’s alleged death. 

Hamas has frequently lied about the deaths of specific hostages that later turned out to be alive. 

Last month, Daniella Gilboa and three other female Israeli hostages were released alive in exchange for 200 convicted Arab terrorists from Israeli jails. 

She recently thanked the Israeli people for standing behind her and her family during the long time of her captivity in the Gaza Strip. 

“What a bizarre year it has been for me, I don’t even know where to start,” Gilboa wrote. “I think first of all, I’ll say thank you to the people who supported my family for a year and three months, who didn’t leave, didn’t give up, or lose hope,” she continued. 

“Thank you for waiting for me, thank you for not believing the terrible rumors, thank you for continuing to pray for me throughout this entire period. This was my last request before I was kidnapped. I didn’t want to give up or say goodbye, so instead, I prayed and believed with all my heart that my end wasn’t there, in that bomb shelter,” she added.

“The only thing that could save us was faith,” she concluded.