The families of two hostages released from captivity in Gaza over the weekend gave updates Sunday on their freed loved ones in a press conference at Sheba Medical Center, where they are being cared for following their return to Israel.

Released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen was able to survive nearly 500 days in captivity without knowing the fate of his family, with only love keeping him going, his wife said, while the mother of former hostage Sasha Troufanov called it a “miracle” that her son could walk, despite having been shot in both legs.

Dekel-Chen and Troufanov were abducted from their homes on Kibbutz Nir Oz, during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massive assault on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 seized as hostages, triggering the war. They were set free on Saturday, along with Iair Horn, who was also abducted from Nir Oz.

Sagui’s wife, Avital Dekel-Chen, said in a tremulous statement that the love of her life, the father of her children, had come home to them.

She shared that her husband had not known what had happened to his family on October 7 until the day before he was released.

“That’s when he found out that we were alive,” she said. “How did he manage to survive? Love.”

On the day of the Hamas attack, Avital was heavily pregnant. Along with her two young daughters, she survived the massacre in Nir Oz. The couple’s third daughter, Shachar Mazal, was born two months later and celebrated her first birthday in December without having met her father.

(Sagui’s mother, Neomit, was taken captive along with her neighbors in an electric cart that was headed toward Gaza when an IDF helicopter shot at the terrorists and driver. Neomit, injured, made her way back toward the kibbutz and was eventually rescued and evacuated.)

During the long months that Dekel-Chen, 36, was held prisoner, Avital recalled on Sunday, “I said that if there’s anything that can overcome this, it is the love and connection that Sagui and I have.”

But alongside the joy she felt at his release, she also “couldn’t help but think of all of the other children who are still waiting for their fathers to come home.”

“The children asking, ‘When is Abba [Dad] coming home?'” Avital said.

Avital also shared Sagui’s thoughts on how the number of days the captives have been held is often cited as a measure of their prolonged suffering.

She said her husband, a dual Israeli-US citizen,  pointed out to her that 498 days is over 43 million seconds. The hostages, he told her, “don’t count days or hours or minutes, they count seconds in hell.”

In her own remarks,........

© The Times of Israel