Deborah Cohen, the aunt of Eitan Yahalomi, 12, who is a dual French-Israeli citizen, told French TV outlet BFMTV on Tuesday (translated from French): "Eitan apparently saw horrors over there [in Gaza]. … Hamas forced Eitan to watch a horror film [of October 7], that no one could [bear to] watch … Every time that a child cried over there, they threatened [the child] with a gun to be quiet." She added that child hostages had been beaten when they arrived in Gaza after being kidnapped by Hamas.

Eitan Yahalomi was abducted during the October 7 terror attack from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his father Ohad, who remains a hostage. Nir Oz was one of the hardest hit communities in the attack, with a quarter of the population murdered or kidnapped as hostages. All of the eleven Israeli hostages released in the fourth and final planned release Monday were women and children who were separated from their husbands and fathers, who are still being held as hostages in Gaza by the terrorist organization.