'No muscles left, only loose skin': Hostages starved in Hamas captivity, doctor says

While the people of Israel breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the four abductees return in seemingly reasonable condition, a nutritionist from Sheba who treated them said that they suffered from severe malnutrition and a long rehabilitation awaited them.

"They ate a tenth of what they are supposed to eat," the expert said, asking that bystanders do not say that the rescued individuals "look fine."

The photos and videos circulated of the repatriation of the four hostages who were rescued from Gaza raised voices on social networks who claimed that they looked "better" than expected after a long period of captivity.

Medical experts weigh in

Mittal Binyamin, a clinical nutritionist at the Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer who received and treated them, explained in an interview with Walla why appearances hide malnutrition and serious deficiencies due to the difficult conditions they experienced. Binyamin called for people to remove the word "fine" from their vocabulary when talking about them.

"In the beginning, from the moment of the kidnapping, they were literally starved. The conditions were psychological. The World Health Organization sets a minimum standard for nutritional security, which a human needs to survive. In the first months, they received one-tenth of the amount of calories and received no protein at all. Two meals a day. Dates and pita bread, and that's it," she says.

"What happens to the body in such a situation is that it has to break down available reserves - muscle. When they came back, they were very depleted in terms of muscle. No muscles were left in the body, only loose skin; everything was [gone]."

She said, "When people lose weight very quickly without eating protein, this is what happens: the body digests muscle tissue. It is common to think of muscles as arms and legs, but they are also the internal organs such as the heart, stomach, and diaphragm. In an extreme situation, the body must activate the heart, brain, and respiratory system. So it paralyzes other systems."

After a few months, she says, there was a certain improvement in the nutritional conditions compared to those they received before. But even then, the conditions they received were subhuman.

"They ate about a tenth or a quarter of what they are supposed to eat. Compared to the necessary hundred, from zero protein to ten grams of protein. They were healthy, young people with muscle mass, people who exercised. When the body is starved and receives more calories, it stores it as fat, not muscle mass.

"What may appear to be a normal state of a person who is not starving is only because of the extra fat. But professionals see them without clothes, check them, and see that the situation is different."

"Everyone lost weight," she explained. "In the beginning, a lot, on average, between ten and 12 kilograms, and when the conditions improved, they increased slightly. Now, they weigh three to five kilograms less than their normal weight, but what they gain back is fat and not muscle. We did muscle strength tests on them, and their results were poor, Even from the minimum possible in our table."

Andrey Kozlov's parents, for example, said that he tried to train in captivity. "Perhaps it was good for the mind, but no muscle could be built because of the lack of protein. Everyone came back severely malnourished according to all categories. The consequences of this could be damage to internal organs; it is likely that if it had lasted longer, we would have seen more injuries, for example, in the heart muscle and neurologically speaking. They are still back when the situation is back to normal. There may already be effects on the less healthy people who are in captivity. I don't want to bring down the morale or cause grief to the families of the abductees who are still in captivity. ".

"We also had to supplement their intake of vitamins and minerals," she adds, "for example, vitamin D because they were not exposed to the sun, vitamin B, which is responsible for brain activity. You have to understand that appearance does not mean nutritional status. They are not well. Not mentally, not nutritionally. They will need a long rehabilitation, but we believe they can return to full, good health."