Former hostage Maxim Herkin recounted in an interview broadcast Thursday that his Hamas captors severely beat him and then wrote the words, “a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye” on his back as a message to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who received a photo.

The young father, 35, who hid the fact that he was an IDF reserve officer from his captors, was the latest freed hostage to report being tortured as a result of Ben Gvir’s highly publicized campaign to worsen the conditions of Palestinian inmates. He also detailed the circumstances of his capture, when his two friends were killed at his side, and the brutal interrogations to which he was subjected in captivity.

“I was beaten up at least four or five times” due to Ben Gvir, Herkin told Channel 12 investigative reporting program Uvda in the interview.  During the beatings, Herkin said, he and other hostages were made to sit on their knees with their faces to a cement wall.

“I would just close my head, you know, and pray,” said Herkin, miming shielding his head with his hands. “The first time you’re put up against the wall like that, your first thought is that they were going to shoot us full of holes.”

His captors, Herkin recalled, said, in Arabic, “Ashan Ben Gvir.”

“As in, because of Ben Gvir. Everything is because of Ben Gvir,” said Herkin. “This is what Ben Gvir does, this is what we’ll do. And they took revenge on us.”

“They inscribed on my back, ‘a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye,’ and I know they transferred that picture to [Israel],” he said.

“It was sending regards to a certain person, and he received it,” said Herkin, referring to Ben Gvir.

“I’m not a political person, but my understanding is, you’re a minister, you’re a representative of the government, you’re supposed to watch your mouth,” Herkin said.

In the future, elect people who are in favor of their nation and not against it

“But the important thing is to learn the lesson, as they say,” said Herkin, flashing a smile and giving a thumbs-up. “And in the future, to elect people who are in favor of their nation and not against it.”

Responding to Herkin’s comments — which came days after freed hostage Bar Kuperstein gave a similar account — Ben Gvir repeated his allegation that the reports were “part of a campaign in the service of Hamas that is intended to improve prison conditions for the terrorists.”

In fact, hostages were tortured following the assassination of........

© The Times of Israel