The mother of one of the four Hamas hostages rescued by Israeli forces during a special operation over the weekend says her son has described to her “very strange rules” the Palestinian terrorists made him live by.
Evgeniia Kozlova told Reuters that her first conversation with Andrey Kozlov after he was freed was “both hard and joyful, and wonderful, and terrible because he was in a huge emotional turmoil.”
“He told us that they were required to follow some very strange rules, like you can’t sit with your legs towards these terrorists. You can’t do this, and you can’t do that,” she said to the news agency. “You could be punished for getting the wrong water or getting it from the wrong place.”
“They liked to tell them: ‘You’re an animal, you’re a donkey, you’re a fool, you’re dirty,” Kozlova also recalled her 27-year-old son as saying. “Andrey now knows these words perfectly well in Arabic, everything about Arabic swear words he has learnt well.”
DRAMATIC VIDEO SHOWS MOMENT ISRAELI HOSTAGES ARE RECOVERED IN DARING RESCUE
Evgeniia Kozlova, the mother of Andrey Kozlov, who was taken hostage during the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, speaks to Reuters during an interview after Israeli special forces rescued him from Gaza, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday, June 11. (Reuters/Marko Djurica)
Kozlova added that “Andrey told us: ‘There are some things I will never tell you’. I don’t know what he didn’t tell us and what he doesn’t want to ever tell us.”
She told Reuters that her son – who was captured by Hamas at the Nova music festival near the Israel-Gaza border on Oct. 7, 2023 – said he remained convinced he would return to Israel at some point.
“There was such a flow of energy from him, he was crying and laughing, and I was laughing too. We were comforting each other,” Kozlova said.
HOSTAGE-FREEING ISRAELI RAID MAY HAVE ENTAILED WAR CRIMES ON BOTH SIDES, UN SAYS
A combination picture shows (clockwise from top left) former hostages Almog Meir Jan, Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv after arriving in Israel following the rescue. (Israeli Army/Reuters)
Israeli forces on Monday released dramatic video showing the rescue of Kozlov and the other hostages.
Those rescued also included Noa Argamani, 26, Shlomi Ziv, 41, and Almog Meir Jan, 22.
Newly freed hostages board a helicopter and are flown back to Israel during the operation over the weekend. (IDF)
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Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows Yamam anti-terror officers and Shin Bet operatives storming the location where three of the four hostages were being held. Ziv, Kozlov and Jan are later seen boarding a helicopter and being flown back to Israel.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
