When the Gaza sunshine was at its hottest, Andrey Kozlov said the Hamas fighters would cover him with blankets, leaving him to stew in his sweat. When he asked about his family, they would say they had forgotten him. When they pulled the blindfold from his eyes, they said they would kill him and film his murder. The 27-year-old said he suffered intense psychological – and some physical – abuse at the hands of Hamas. He cannot bring himself to describe all that happened to him and the two other hostages he was kept with during his eight months of captivity in Gaza. After being snatched from the Nova music festival on October 7, Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, said he was tied up for “three days with rope, then until the middle of December with chains.” During these months he was subjected to “creative” forms of punishment: One guard “told…
