Former hostage Alexander Sasha Troufanov was buried in a cage and sexually harassed in captivity, he told BBC in an interview on Thursday.
For around six weeks, while in the cage, one guard repeatedly tried to encourage him to do a sexual act on himself. Additionally, a hidden camera filmed him during his once-a-week shower, the only moments he was allowed to clean himself.
"I noticed the camera, and I took the shower trying to avoid my private parts towards this angle, but I had to do it because I needed to shower," he explained.
Troufanov stated that he found relief in hearing that St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili was finally buried in Israel. "It felt wonderful. We waited so long for this to happen."
Troufanov, speaking during a visit to London, told BBC that the end of the wait for all the hostages to be back home was a burden that he carried ever since he came back from Gaza. "It was like a weight on my shoulders that kept me from coming back to my life. Although we were released, we didn't really come out of Gaza because our friends and brothers were still there."
Gaza captivity leaves Troufanov wounded
The former hostage, an Amazon electronics engineer, was kidnapped by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunman on October 7, 2023. His fiancée Sapir Cohen, mother, and grandmother were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
The female members of his family were released after about 50 days, while he was only freed after 498 days in Hamas captivity, approximately one year ago. The day he was released, he discovered that his father had been murdered on October 7, coming to the realization when he noticed his father was not there to welcome him home.
These memories were further brought to the forefront when Gvili's remains were returned, coincidentally on the day of Troufanov's father's birthday, pairing the aforementioned relief with grief and sorrow.
He also recalled the day he was taken captive during the interview. At that time, he and Cohen were visiting his family on Kibbutz Nir Oz when Palestinian gunmen stormed their homes. Cohen tried to hide by rolling herself in a blanket and going under the bed, but they were both caught.
Troufanov was punched and stabbed in the shoulder. "I saw the terrorist with so much anger and hate in his face, holding his knife, trying to stab me even more," he recounted.
He tried to escape, but ended up giving up on running and was then shot twice in each leg by the terrorists.
"I just felt the rush of pain going through my brain, and I fell to the ground, then one of the terrorists hit me with the rifle from the back of my head and split it open," he recalled.
He told BBC that he was beaten by civilians by the time he arrived in Gaza, which made him think he was going to die.
He was held almost the entire time of his captivity, completely alone, seeing another hostage for only two of the almost 500 days he spent in Gaza.
Taken underground to Hamas tunnels, "I remember feeling that I was buried underneath the ground while I was still alive. I was losing it. I was having a hard time finding hope in this place. Many times, I lost hope completely. I said to myself: 'This is the last place you will see alive,'" he remembered.
For the first time since 2014, Israel lives a moment with no hostages held in Gaza. Even with US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan in action, Troufanov believes that the measures are not enough.
"Rebuilding Gaza, after what happened in the war, is understandable. But first of all, we need to make sure that the people of Gaza will stop trying to hurt Israel. The terrorists were telling me: 'We will do this again and again.'"
The "rebuilding of Gaza and opening of the Rafah Border Crossing is in vain as it will never solve the real problem. We need to find a way to make this hatred and encouragement of terrorist activity stop," he affirmed.
Living a journey of mental and physical rehabilitation, the freed hostage faces difficulties with a leg surgery. Even though his hopes remain high to follow through on his plans to dance at his wedding with Cohen in a few weeks. "It's a victory: overcoming hate and fear and saying to ourselves: 'We will build life together and we will continue,'" he concluded.