Israeli woman formerly held hostage by Hamas recounts harrowing details of captivity to UCLA anti-Israel activist
‘Do you know how many bodies I saw? Do you know how many bodies were there? Do you know how much violence was taken on me?’ she said.
‘All I saw is 100 percent of civilians lynching me, beating me up, I was with a broken leg, I had bruises all over my body. Do you know that I’ve never cursed them?’ she continued.
An Israeli woman who was captured by Hamas during the Oct. 7 massacre and was later freed recently spoke with a University of California, Los Angeles student at a panel discussion at the California school.
The interaction was published Monday in an Instagram clip from the group Trusted Confidential Coverage, though the event originally took place on June 16.
In the clip, former Hamas hostage Moran Stella Yanai was seen speaking to Aidan Doyle, identified as the “UCLA Encampment Leader” in the Instagram post, about her time in captivity in Gaza.
“Have you visited Israel before? No. Have you visited Gaza before? Probably not,” she said. “You’re talking about genocide? . . . When Oct. 7 happened . . . [Hamas terrorists] planned to move on and kill as much as they could in Be’er Sheva, in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, they wanted to slaughter everybody.”
“I can present to you my videos that I took there. Do you know how many bodies I saw? Do you know how many bodies were there? Do you know how much violence was taken on me? I was caught in the middle of a lynch,” she continued.
“We went to dance. We didn’t attack. . . . Do you support [Hamas’s] actions?” she asked Doyle.
[RELATED: Video shows anti-Israel protesters blocking UCLA campus in defiance of injunction]
“When I was entering Gaza . . . I saw one hundred percent of civilians celebrating me being taken . . . . All I saw is 100 percent of civilians lynching me, beating me up, I was with a broken leg, I had bruises all over my body. Do you know that I’ve never cursed them? I’ve never argued with them. And I’ve never treated them like garbage. I respected them, even when they abused me, because I believe that if I want to be respected, I have to respect everybody else,” she continued.
During the interaction, Doyle consistently refused to look Yanai in the eye.
Doyle was previously arrested in May for his role in the encampment. At the time, he spoke to Sky News and justified the encampment’s disruptive conduct: “Part of a protest is causing disruption and causing at least a minor level of chaos that is, again, not violent but that actually disrupts things.”
He denied that anti-Israel activists were anti-Semitic, saying: “I think Jewish sovereignty is incredible. I think it’s an amazing thing. . . .I think that if there is a country for Jewish people that protects the Jewish people, that is of utmost importance, especially with the vile and rampant antisemitism that exists across the world that I see every day and that I try and combat as much as possible.”
He added, however: “But doing that and then simultaneously repressing another group of people, dehumanising them and brutalising them, then the question of whether your state has the right to exist becomes secondary.”
Campus Reform has reached out to UCLA, Moran Stella Yanai, and Aidan Doyle for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
