Rescued Hostages Are Now Sick

Dr. Itay Pesach says captivity, quote, left a significant mark on their health, unquote, with muscles wasted and other bodily systems damaged. The doctor overseeing the recovery of 4 Israeli hostages rescued from the Gaza Strip said that they were beaten regularly during their captivity by the Hamas terror group. Dr. Itai Pesach of Sheva Medical Center outside Tel Aviv told CNN that the hostages suffered almost daily abuse and that their time in captivity was a harsh, harsh experience. Quote, every hour, both physical, mental, and other types, and that is beyond comprehension. There have been periods when they got almost no food whatsoever, Pesach said. There were other periods where it was a little better, but all in all, the combination of the psychological stress, malnutrition, or not getting enough food, or not getting the right kind of food, medical neglect, being limited to space, not seeing the sun, and all of the other things have a significant effect on their health. So they lived in terror for 6 months. Longer than 6 months now. Let's see, October is the 10th month. We're in the 6th month, 8 months. So let me tell you a story about terror. I experienced terror only once in my life. Most people actually don't experience it ever. Did you ever experience terror? Right, yeah, most people don't. Certainly in the— yeah, well, I'd say most people don't if you're not in a war zone. I was smuggling out anti-communist literature from the Soviet Union and I hid it in the battery drive of my, my camera, a Nikon camera. And I, I, I was quite certain, first of all, that very, very few Soviet guards had seen something so— they've seen cameras, of course, with tourists, visitors to the Soviet Union, but The odds of their opening up the battery drive, or even know that it could be open— and why would they open it? So my then wife and I were on a train going out of the Soviet Union into Romania, another communist country at the time, and it was midnight. It was extremely eerie going from communist country to communist country. Train was stopped and Soviet guards came on the train to check on people on passports. I don't know if there were any other Westerners on, on the train. I would say mostly Romanians and Soviet citizens. And I speak Russian, so they— so I spoke to them, you know, try to be charming. You know, just like, uh, an American tourist was visiting with his wife, and they wanted to see our luggage. What were we taking out of the Soviet Union? Nothing was there. And then they saw the camera, and they took the camera. The only thing they took of everything we owned was the camera. And I said to my wife, I said, it is inconceivable to me that given what we have there, they're not going to find it. And we actually packed a little bag with toothbrushes and toothpaste. Assuming we would be sent to some prison. And I, I experienced terror. The fact that it was midnight didn't help. And they came back about 40 minutes later with the camera. They had not opened the the drive. I did not even envision not being caught. And you have to understand, this was a very serious offense to bring anti-Soviet literature in Russian out of the Soviet Union. I was helping dissidents, obviously. And I tell this to you because of the follow-up. We eventually went from Romania to Israel. It was the one communist country with a direct flight to Tel Aviv, and we both were sick for 2 weeks. I mean sick. And it was purely because we had experienced terror. So these people had it for 8 months. Only knows— only God knows what effect that, that will have on, on their health. So I understand what the doctor was saying. For the full episode of The Dennis Prager Show, go to pragertopia.com, sign up, and become a full member.