A freed Hamas hostage has revealed that the terrorists repeatedly tried to force her to convert to Islam while she was being held captive and demanded that her family pay a ransom in exchange for her release.
Moran Stella Yanai, 41, who was among those snatched from the Nova Music Festival during the Oct. 7 bloodshed, told the Israeli N12 network that her kidnappers also promised to release her sooner if she converted religions.
“Almost daily one of them would enter the room, saying ‘Would be better for you to be a Muslim woman,’ and once the terrorist sent one of his comrades to get a head covering to put on me, and show me what it means to be a Muslim woman,” Yanai said.
“As a woman, my biggest fear is being sold. That someone would forcefully marry me and that I will have to convert to Islam.”
The jewelry designer, who ended up being held hostage in Gaza for 44 days, said the terrorists tortured her family as well by trying to extort them.
“It is a part of their mind games, they are not playing just with us, but also with our families,” Yanai said, adding, “it does not end in our death or kidnapping, they continue to torture and abuse our families.”
At one point, she said the Hamas brutes interrogated her with questions about her father for an entire day — including how much he earned and what price he would be willing to pay to have her released.
Yanai learned later that they had sent her father a photo of her and threatened to murder her if he didn’t cough up the ransom money.
“He went into shock,” she said of the moment her dad started receiving the ransom messages.
“He received a picture of his daughter and is told that if he didn’t pay money within an hour, they would start killing us one by one,” she continued.
“I try to imagine my father in this situation, being told that in an hour they will kill your daughter if you don’t send money. I think about my father, and what goes through his mind – it could break his heart. My parents experienced trauma no less than I did.”
Yanai was among the first batch of hostages freed by Hamas last November as part of a temporary cease-fire with Israel.
During the exchange, Hamas freed 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
Yanai spoke out as ceasefire talks continued this week in Egypt with little sign of a concrete breakthrough.
There are still 109 Israeli and foreign hostages being held captive by Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attack.
