[Source: Reuters]

Families of some Israeli hostages in Gaza have received signs of life from their loved ones for the first time in more than a year via captives who have been freed over the past weeks in the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

The messages, along with reports of their harsh conditions in captivity, have been carried by some of the 19 Israeli hostages freed so far in the ceasefire that took effect on January 19.

While the reports have strengthened the families’ hope to reunite with their relatives, they have also filled them with dread over their wellbeing. The emaciated appearance of three of the hostages freed on February 8 have only added to their fears.

Signs of life have come so far from at least 10 hostages who were among the 251 kidnapped during Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel, which triggered the Gaza war.

Among them is Elkana Bohbut, 35, seized from the Nova music festival. A video of him bound and with a bloody face circulated on social media within hours of his abduction.

Almost 500 days after, through a freed hostage with whom he was being held in a Gaza tunnel, he asked his wife Rivka to listen every day to an Israeli pop song called “Warrior” and draw strength from it.

“500 terrible days have passed, and this week, thank God, we received a sign of life. Elkana is alive but suffering in inhuman conditions,” said Rivka Bohbot, before she quoted the song back to him on Saturday.

“I promise you that we will not stop until you come back. We will never give up on you. Don’t break, my beloved. Soon you will be home. Soon the nightmare will be over,” she said, crying and smiling on the stage of a weekly hostage rally in Tel Aviv.

Another hostage who got a message out was 24-year-old pianist Alon Ohel, seized from a roadside bomb shelter where he had fled to from the Nova festival.

His mother Idit said he is being held injured and shackled in a tunnel, living off one piece of bread a day. But he still managed to send his sister a happy birthday message through one of the freed hostages, she said on Tuesday.

“It was wonderful,” she said as she broke into tears. “To hear from her brother, which is incredible to have that on her birthday.”