Israeli hostage shares her experience of being held captive for 54 days by Hamas

ByTom George WTVD logo

Friday, October 31, 2025

Israeli hostage shares story of survival

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Moran Yanai spent 54 days in captivity after being kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza on October 7th, 2023.

She has been sharing her story so that it can provide hope to others. Yanai spoke to a crowd about her experience at the Millennium Hotel in Durham.

Yanai was selling jewelry at the Nova Music festival when it was stormed by Hamas. - Captured and taken into Gaza - enduring pain and suffering, breaking her leg in several places, she says the real challenge was mental.

"I'm talking about mind over body to understand that this machine can do so much more than we think," she says.

But she says she kept up her faith, and eventually was among the first hostages to be released.

"You see everything so clearly, you think clearly. But then, also you see the amount of evil of people. You see the amount of places that you want to change," she says.

After her release, she fought for more hostages to be freed. Eventually, others, including Chapel Hill native Keith Siegel, were freed.

Siegel also shared the horrors he faced in captivity with ABC News.

"I spent 6 months alone, I was moved around 33 times, and spent time in tunnels," he said.

And recently, the final living hostages were returned, but Yanai also wants to see those who didn't survive to have the remains returned.

"They started this situation, is the same as me. They should have the privilege to go back home and to give that family closure or a place to go up to to, you know, have that memory of their loved one. So for me, the message is not yet over because this war is not over yet to me in my head," she says.

But she says her main message is to never give up hope, even in the darkest of times.

"It's not over till it's over. And when it's over, we all need to be responsible on how our life will look like," she says.