New testimonies of Israeli female prisoners who were released in the last exchange deal showed some of the good treatment they received during the captivity process.

One of the female prisoners explained that women are sacred and queens to them, and she said that one of the guards wrapped his hand in a piece of cloth when he played with her the game of “crackers.” When the broadcaster asked her about the secret of that, she answered: Because it is forbidden for them to touch us. Here another woman intervened and said: Women are sacred to them, women are like a queen.

The new testimonies come in light of circulating Israeli talk about why Hamas refrained from releasing the rest of its female prisoners, saying that the movement is afraid of their testimonies, alluding to their exposure to violations, a narrative that US President Joe Biden has also adopted.

The new testimonies showed the resistance’s concern for the prisoners to the point of protecting them from violent Israeli bombardment, and treating them as guests in accordance with the teachings of Islam, which forbids exposure to women.

Almog Goldstein, 48, told Israeli Channel 12 on Friday evening that Hamas militants were aware of the importance of the Israeli prisoners, referring to the conclusion of prisoner exchange deals.

She revealed that one night, during captivity in Gaza, prisoners, whose number she did not specify, were taken out to a supermarket to sit in a place she did not specify.

She said: “We were in a supermarket, then quickly there was an (Israeli) bombing on the street (where the supermarket is located), and (the shooting) was like an excavator approaching you. His coming to you, it was crazy, it was like this ta ta ta, and he comes to you.”

She added: “While we were like this, we folded the bed we were on, and our guards and armed kidnappers stood protecting us with their bodies.”

The Israeli journalist asked, “Do they protect you?” She replied, “From the shooting coming from the Israeli army, because we were very important to them.”

She pointed out that “there was a fear that they would receive some instructions, and perhaps something in the end that they would decide to kill us.”

She said: “And we would ask them that sometimes as well, and they would tell us: We will die before you die, we will die together (..) If that happens, we will die together because we are close to you, we are with you.”

Goldstein, her daughter Agam (17 years old), and her two sons Gal (11 years old) and Tal (9 years old) were released by Hamas three weeks ago as part of a prisoner exchange deal that included a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip.

Goldstein stated that she and her children were captured with other Israeli prisoners in an apartment for 5 weeks and said: “My fears were that this thing (captivity) would probably take years.”

She added: “We were asked to walk a little to move the body.”

She stated that she shook hands with one of the gunmen, saying: “He brought a towel and put it on his hand before greeting me, because he is not allowed to touch me.”

As for her daughter Agam, she said: “They told me: ‘You, we will marry you in Gaza, and we will find a husband for you here.’”

As for Goldstein, she said: “They also gave it a very beautiful Arabic name. They called it “Salsabil,” which means fresh water.”

However, her daughter Agam said: “I don’t want them to think that we were good there, that they were good there, that we saw some kind of humanity in them.” “We will never forgive and we will never show any kind of compassion towards these people.”

Israeli Channel 12 said: “Hamas, which detained the four family members, realized that it had a priceless bargaining chip in its hands, and instructed their captors to keep Goldstein and her children alive at all costs.”

Agam said: “Netanyahu wanted to bring down Hamas. But if you kill the two guards who were with me, where am I, and where will I go? “Here, we have received answers about where people would go without their captors. They were killed by the fire of our forces.”

In this regard, she pointed out that the Israeli army “accidentally” killed 3 Israeli prisoners in Gaza recently.

Referring to participating in the funeral of one of these prisoners, she added: “They asked me why I attended Alon’s funeral, and I said that I felt like it was us, but this did not happen to us in the end.”

On the other hand, a former advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu said that the only way to free the hostages is to stop the bombing and negotiate their release.

Daniel Levy said that the Israelis should think seriously, citing the US Secretary of Defense's statements that Israel risks a "strategic defeat" in Gaza if it does not respond to warnings about the high number of civilian deaths.

He said that "Israel" has already lost.