For two months at the beginning of his captivity in Gaza, fighters tied Andrei Kozlov’s hands and feet, leaving marks on his body. They tried to convince him that the outside world, including his parents, had abandoned him.
“Your mom is on vacation in Greece,” the fighters told him. “Your mom doesn’t know anything about you and she doesn’t want to know.”
The account of Mr. Kozlov’s eight months in captivity, given by his parents in an interview, came after he and three other hostages were rescued by Israeli commandos on Saturday in central Gaza, in an operation that left many Palestinians dead. The details provided more evidence that militants in Gaza were mistreating hostages, after people freed last November during a temporary ceasefire said they suffered physical, emotional and even sexual abuse.
The risky rescue lifted public spirits in Israel and sparked spontaneous celebrations, but also highlighted the plight of more than 100 other hostages, alive and dead, who remain trapped in Gaza.
“He said it was very difficult,” said his mother, Evgeniia Kozlova, who, along with his father, Mikhail Kozlov, spoke to The New York Times this week in Tel Aviv. “It’s very hard to put into words.”
Hamas has said it treats the hostages well compared to Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners, a claim Israeli officials strongly dispute. In an apparent attempt at psychological warfare, his captors told Mr. Kozlov, 27, a Russian-Israeli, that the Israeli government had concluded that the hostages were a burden, Ms. Kozlova said.
“Andrei was told to be very quiet because they, the hostages, are a problem for Israel,” he said. “They said Israel can solve this problem any way it wants, including killing the hostages so they don’t have to think about them anymore.”
The militants’ claims took a toll on Mr. Kozlov — so much so that when Israeli forces arrived in a civilian neighborhood in central Gaza to rescue him, he said, he was at first unsure whether they had come to save or kill him.
Since the start of the war, Israeli forces have rescued only seven of the roughly 250 people abducted in Gaza during the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel. (More than 100 hostages were freed in November as part of a short-lived truce; at least a third of the 120 captives remaining in Gaza are dead, according to Israeli authorities.) Last week’s rescue operation also resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Palestinians , many of whom were civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel has criticized Hamas for holding hostages in civilian areas. Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said on Sunday that the group had tried to remove civilians from the conflict. But Hamas has taken advantage of urban areas in Gaza to provide its fighters and weapons infrastructure with an extra layer of protection, running tunnels under neighborhoods, placing rocket launchers near civilian homes and holding hostages in city centers.
Unlike other hostages, Mr. Kozlov was never brought into Gaza’s vast network of underground tunnels, and guards told him his conditions were far better than those of other hostages, his mother said. He received food throughout his captivity, but it was often simple items like pie, cheese and tomatoes, he said.
During his captivity, Mr Kozlov only went out at night when he was moved to a new location, his mother added. He was transferred many times throughout the war, he said.
Mr. Kozlov, Andrei’s father, said that when he and his wife discussed months ago whether they would prefer their son to be rescued in a military operation or released through a diplomatic deal, both favored a deal. But since no deal materialized, he said, they wanted to bring him home by any means possible.
Asked about the Palestinian civilians who were killed in the midst of rescuing their son, Mr Kozlov said he was saddened by their deaths.
“If there was such a possibility to avoid these casualties, it would be much better,” he said.
