Former hostage David Cunio said that he considered collecting pills so that he could overdose while being held in torturous conditions by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, in a harrowing interview aired on Monday.

Speaking to Channel 12 news, Cunio also recalled the terrible uncertainty he felt not knowing the fate of his brother Ariel, who was also kidnapped with Ariel’s partner Arbel Yehoud, and after being separated from his own wife and children when they were released from captivity before him.

Cunio described the morning of October 7, 2023, when he was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz as Hamas terrorists attacked the community, burning homes, killing residents, and kidnapping people.

David was abducted along with his wife, Sharon, twin daughters Yuli and Emma, and Sharon’s sister, Danielle Aloni, and Danielle’s daughter Emilia, 5, who were visiting them for the holiday weekend.

“Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Sharon being dragged by one of the terrorists, and I shout, ‘My wife, my wife,” Cunio said, adding that they had initially been separated from Emma.

“We are completely consumed by the thought that Emma is not with us,” Cunio said. “We keep asking, telling them there is another girl who looks exactly like Yuli, whose name is Emma, ​​and who is her twin, and if they can find her. But no one knows; it was chaos. We were not eating or drinking much; we couldn’t bear the thought that Emma was not with us.”

“It was very difficult to function there, but I felt the need to protect them all the time because I was the only man there,” Cunio said of his time in captivity with his family in Gaza.

“Many times I saw the two Hamas terrorists that were guarding us sleeping, and a knife under their bed, and I wondered if I could do something, maybe I could save us. But you think about this moment again, and then you say — I eliminated both of them, you leave, and what will you do? You would go out to the masses, and they’d devour you.”

Cunio said he used a whiteboard to write the Hebrew word for “rescue,” and put it close to the window, with the hope that an Israeli drone would see it, and troops might come and save them.

After the home they were held in was hit in an airstrike on the tenth day of the war, they were moved to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Cunio said he was disguised as a dead body in a bag, while Sharon wore a hijab when they were taken there.

At the hospital, he and his wife and daughter Yuli were reunited with their second daughter, Emma, who was thin and had a rash. At first,........

© The Times of Israel