Apology, tears and terror: a former hostage recounts a seven-week ordeal

She and the surviving children – another daughter, Agam, 17, and two sons, Gal, 11, and Tal, 9 – were released in late November as part of the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas that has since been halted.

In an interview this week, she shared details about her ordeal.

She said she and the children were kept together, treated “respectfully” and suffered no physical harm. But she said that during various moves during their captivity, she met other hostages who were treated poorly, including two women who said they had been sexually assaulted.

Usually they were kept in a room in a Gaza apartment, she said, with the windows closed a little fresh air in the early morning. But the heavily armed kidnappers also took Ms. Goldstein-Almog and her children to several apartments, tunnels, a mosque and even a destroyed supermarket, she said.

As the Israeli army stormed Gaza, each transfer was terrifying, and the men holding them, they said, did not always seem to know what to do.

Describing one movement, she said, “It was the middle of the night. Everything was dark. They began to deliberate among themselves. I saw the helplessness on their faces.”

“While we were on the street, in total darkness, a shot rang out above us,” she continued. “We were pressed against the wall and I could see a laser pointer, as if we were being attacked from above.”

And she thought, that’s our air force up there.

“It was crazy,” she said, “this absurdity.”