Freed Israeli hostage Bar Kupershtein, 23, has shared his harrowing story of survival after spending two years trapped in a cramped Hamas tunnel beneath Gaza — with no sunlight, scarce food, and regular beatings. He says he survived by clinging to one belief: he was always in God’s hands.
Kupershtein, a trained medic and former soldier, was abducted on October 7, 2023, while working as an usher at the Nova music festival, where Hamas militants attacked and killed 364 people. He was dragged into Gaza along with dozens of others as chaos erupted across the festival grounds.
In his first interview since being freed under a ceasefire deal that exchanged 20 Israeli hostages for 2,000 Palestinian detainees, Kupershtein described being confined with five others in a tunnel barely the size of a mattress. Despite the abuse and isolation, the group supported each other — reciting Jewish Sabbath blessings every Friday night and refusing to abandon hope.
He recalled moments of terror, including when a guard ordered the captives to choose which three of them would die — a threat that was never carried out. “I just remember praying to God, begging Him, saying: Save me, I’m in Your hands now,” Kupershtein said.
His mother, Julie, told Hamas guards the same words when they threatened her son over the phone — a phrase that became a family symbol of faith: “Always in the Hands of God.”
Kupershtein’s emotional testimony sheds light on the human cost of the war, the suffering endured by hostages, and the power of faith and resilience under unimaginable conditions.
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