The 23-year-old’s last words were: ‘They’ve caught me.’
In a chilling interview with CNN, the sisters of slain hostage Eden Yerushalmi revealed the abuse she had endured while in captivity under Hamas.
Eden was working as a bartender at the Nova music festival on October 7 when Hamas launched its unprovoked attack on Israel.
As sirens sounded, Eden sent a video of rocket fire to her family group chat, informing them she was leaving the festival. For four hours, she spoke with her sisters May and Shani, who heard her desperate attempts to escape.
The 23-year-old’s last words were: “They’ve caught me.”
Over the following months, the family received proof of life on three occasions, with the last coming just three weeks before Eden’s death.
“We feel like we’re in a nightmare,” Shani Yerushalmi told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Sometimes it feels like it isn’t real, like it’s not happening to us, because the whole time we truly believed that Eden would come back home alive.”
Based on information from the Israel Defense Forces, the family learned that she was kept Hamas’ vast network of underground terror tunnels in Gaza.
“They barely could stand fully … they couldn’t sleep next to each other, only in a line. There were no windows, no air, no light. Barely any food, and if they needed to go to the bathroom, they were forced to do it in a bucket,” Shani said.
Tragically, Eden’s body was among six recovered by the IDF in late August from a tunnel beneath Rafah.
The military informed the family that Eden had been shot in the head from close range and had defensive wounds on her hands.
An autopsy revealed Eden weighed just 79 pounds at the time of her death.
“We gave her a last hug to say goodbye to her. She was so thin, we could feel her bones sticking out,” recounted May Yerushalmi. “The most important thing is that she was a hero, and she survived 11 months in those tunnels.”
“They starved her before they murdered her.”
The sisters of murdered hostage Eden Yerushalmi speak with Anderson Cooper:
“It feels like it’s not real. Like it’s not happening to us. The whole time we truly believed Eden would come back home alive.” pic.twitter.com/H8PKh5BzBV
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) September 21, 2024
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