Aviva and Keith Siegel have revealed harrowing new details of their captivity in Gaza, describing the violence of their abduction from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, their repeated transfers between homes and tunnels, desperate shortages of oxygen and water, and moments when they became convinced they would not survive.
The couple recounted their ordeal in a special interview for the IDF’s international podcast marking three years since the October 7 massacre. Aviva was freed in November 2023 after 51 days in captivity, while Keith remained a hostage for 484 days before being released in February 2025.
The Siegels described the morning of October 7, when they were inside their home as the sounds of gunfire drew increasingly closer. After terrorists broke into the house, Keith said their small living room quickly filled with approximately 15 armed men, some wearing uniforms and others dressed in civilian clothing. They were carrying Kalashnikov rifles and knives.
Keith said that even as the attack unfolded, he initially could not comprehend the scale of what was happening or imagine that terrorists would actually reach their home. “I thought in terms of a handful of terrorists who somehow managed to breach the border fence,” he recalled, explaining that residents had been led to believe that the border barrier was extraordinarily difficult to penetrate.
The terrorists eventually forced Keith and Aviva out of their home through a rear window. Aviva injured her knee while being taken out, while Keith suffered broken ribs.
As they were marched toward a vehicle, Keith deliberately tried to slow the process. He walked slowly and pretended to be confused, hoping that every additional moment they remained inside the kibbutz might give Israeli forces enough time to arrive and rescue them.
“The more time I can buy before we get to the car, that’s the time that will allow the IDF to rescue us,” he explained.
His attempt to stall came at a cost. At one point, the terrorists opened fire again, and Keith was struck by a bullet in his hand.
Even after reaching the vehicle, Keith continued searching for ways to prevent their abduction. He knew the car required a security code to start and that entering the wrong code three times would disable the vehicle for approximately 20 to 30 minutes.
“That was my plan,” Keith recalled. Aviva remembered desperately trying to stop him: “Keith, are you crazy? They’re going to kill us.” Keith ultimately entered the correct code.
As they were driven toward Gaza, Keith saw thick black smoke rising over Kfar Aza. When they reached the border, he was stunned by what he saw: Rather than finding a section of fence that had simply been cut open, he said an enormous gate itself was standing wide open.
“In my imagination, I thought they had cut a section of the fence and entered through it. But they managed to open a gate, a huge gate,” he said.
“Is this real? Is this really happening?” Keith remembered thinking. He said that sense of disbelief stayed with him from the moment terrorists entered his home until the end of his 484 days as a hostage.
During the period in which Keith and Aviva remained together, Aviva said their captors moved them 12 times from one location to another. After she and Keith were separated, she was moved once more.
Their places of captivity included underground tunnels and civilian homes. At one stage, Aviva said, they were held in what she believed was a large United Nations school. She recalled seeing a vehicle marked “UN” at the entrance to the facility.
Among the most terrifying locations was the second tunnel into which the hostages were taken. Aviva said conditions deteriorated to the point where she and Keith believed death was imminent.
“Keith and I touched death. And when I say that, it’s not just a sentence. We touched death with our bodies, with our souls, with our emotions, with everything,” Aviva said.
The lack of oxygen became so severe, she recalled, that even basic movement became almost impossible. “We couldn’t breathe. We had no oxygen. The lack of oxygen was at a level where all we could do was lie down and just try to get a little air into our bodies.”
Aviva described overwhelming heaviness, headaches and extreme weakness. Then she realized that Keith was also struggling for air.
“I just looked at the ceiling and told myself: Don’t look at Keith, don’t look at Keith. And I kept telling myself: Just let me die before Keith,” she recalled.
Throughout her captivity, Aviva said, she had been convinced that their son, Shai, had been killed. As she lay in the tunnel believing that she, too, was about to die, she began thinking about saying goodbye to the rest of her family and to Keith.
“It sounds like somebody else’s story, but I was there,” she said.
According to the Siegels, their captors would enter the tunnel briefly in the morning and return again during the afternoon, leaving the hostages alone for much of the remaining time. Food and drinking water were severely limited, and eventually their supply of water ran out entirely.
When only a tiny amount remained in one bottle, Aviva divided it among herself, Keith and another hostage being held with them. “I said: Anyone who needs a sip of water, take only one. And everyone has to take a sip,” she recalled.
Their dehydration became so severe that Aviva began preparing for the possibility that they would have to take extraordinary measures simply to stay alive. She spotted a plastic bag and told the others that she intended to keep it in case she needed to urinate into it.
“I was sure we would reach the point where we’d have to drink it to survive. And I really meant it,” Aviva said.
She was so badly dehydrated that she did not need to use the bathroom at all. More than 12 hours passed before their captors finally returned with water. Aviva remembered the overwhelming relief of seeing the bottle: “We’ll have water. We’re going to survive.”
The Siegels also described being held inside civilian homes during their captivity. In one house, Aviva recalled seeing young children, including a girl approximately three or three-and-a-half years old. One of their Hamas captors told the hostages that the little girl was his daughter.
Their account adds to other testimony from released hostages describing captivity in Gaza’s extensive tunnel network and in civilian locations. Israeli forces have also documented Hamas tunnels, weapons and other terrorist infrastructure in or near civilian facilities, including schools, mosques and hospitals.
Keith said the circumstances in which hostages were held are something he believes the international community needs to understand. “It’s very important that everyone knows that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes to hide.”
Aviva ended with an appeal that the suffering they endured not be ignored. “This world needs to wake up. No one should suffer the way we suffered, and no one should go through what we went through. And Hamas must not be allowed to behave this way.”
{Matzav.com}
