Over a year has passed since the world saw the terrified face of Arbel Yehoud forced to walk through a baying mob of Hamas terrorists to freedom.
Only now does the 30-year-old feel strong enough to reveal that this sickening spectacle was just the last act in a monstrous campaign of abuse unleashed throughout her 482 days held in Gaza.
Motivated to talk after seeing fellow captive Romi Gonen, 25, bravely reveal how she was sexually assaulted by her captors, Arbel tells me this is what she endured ‘almost every single day in captivity’.
Held alone, it was so bad she tried to commit suicide on multiple occasions.
‘I tried to end it three times,’ Arbel says. ‘I felt like I couldn’t go on. There were moments when I thought it was the only way out.’
But she was kept alive by the love for her boyfriend, Ariel Cunio, 28, whom she was torn from after they were kidnapped together.
‘Every time, I remembered Ariel, and that gave me the strength to keep breathing,’ she says of her suicidal thoughts.
Understandably, Arbel does not wish to go into further details of this abuse. But she does tell of how she was held alone in solitary confinement, starved, and psychologically, sexually and physically abused, breaking two of her ribs. Above all, though, it was being separated from the love of her life that most filled her with despair.
Arbel Yehoud being escorted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters as she is handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 30, 2025
Arbel Yehoud was kidnapped alongside her boyfriend Ariel Cunio
Arbel Yehoud reuniting with her family after spending 482 days as a hostage in Gaza
Incredibly, for their first few months the couple managed to smuggle love notes to one another before guards snuffed out their contact.
When she was freed on January 30 last year, it was the knowledge that she was leaving Ariel behind in Gaza that terrified her more than any gunman could.
But after she travelled the world campaigning to free him, he was finally released on October 13 last year.
Now Arbel and Ariel detail how their extraordinary love got them through 15 months in hell.
Paying tribute to the bravery of Romi, who detailed how she was assaulted by three men in the first weeks of her capture, Ariel says: ‘Since I returned, I haven’t been able to watch the stories of other survivors.
‘But when I saw the promo for Romi’s story, it felt different. It was hard for me — but in the end, I decided to watch the segment about her.
‘I realised that what Romi describes experiencing once is what I went through almost every single day in captivity.’
Arbel had lived a quiet life with Ariel in Kibbutz Nir Oz since 2018, raising a two-month-old puppy called Murph and planning a future of marriage and children.
But on the morning of October 7, 2023, everything changed. Palestinian terrorists broke through the Gaza border, killing, raping and kidnapping whoever they could find.
The moment Arbel and Ariel reunite in Israel on October 13, 2025
Arbel and Ariel hid under their bed with Murph.
‘I put my hand over her mouth to stop her barking… but it didn’t help,’ Arbel said. She said it reminded her of Holocaust testimonies, when mothers accidentally suffocated their children while trying to stop them crying as Nazis searched for them.
‘They found us, dragged us out, and shot Murph in front of us. We heard Murph’s crying until she died.’
Arbel was beaten and Ariel endured blunt-force attacks to his head until he bled. Ariel’s brother David, his wife Sharon and their children were taken hostage. Arbel’s brother Dolev went missing and was later declared dead, which she says devastated her.
After three hours in Gaza, they were separated, each sent to different hideouts. Both believed it would be temporary. Both believed survival depended on staying connected.
‘I drove them crazy asking about her,’ says Ariel. ‘I wanted to hear her. I wanted to see her. And they understood that I wouldn’t stop until they gave me something,’ says Ariel.
‘They finally agreed to let us write notes to each other, which they smuggled with messengers,’ says Arbel.
The messages were short and powerful:
‘I’m okay. I love you. Stay strong.’
Arbel and Ariel believed survival depended on staying connected. Photo credit: Nataly Bendersky Shalem
Israeli soldiers and medics accompany Ariel Cunio upon his arrival at the Sheba Tel HaShomer Medical Centre in Ramat Gan on October 13, 2025, alongside Arbel Yehoud
Arbel was released alone into a mob surrounded by hundreds of terrorists last year
Looking pale and terrified, Arbel says she was worried she was going to get snatched away by other gangs
‘In my opinion, it was from a place where they wanted to get more intelligence out of us. They also wanted to silence us.’
‘It gave me strength,’ Ariel said. ‘It reminded me that I wasn’t alone, that someone was fighting with me, even in silence.’
‘I was always anxious that Ariel was going to try to escape and put his life at risk. So those letters calmed me.’
But then, a few months later, it stopped. ‘They told Ariel if he ever mentioned my name again they would kill me.’
For over a year, they lived in isolation and fear.
‘Every day I hoped he was safe. I didn’t know if he was alive, if he was being hurt. That fear was worse than anything else.’
‘The mental toll was insane. Being separated, not knowing if she was okay… I went crazy sometimes. I would walk in circles, hit my head, just to release the tension,’ says Arbel.
‘I tried to end it three times,’ she said. ‘Thinking of Ariel, thinking of our life together, it made me hold on.
‘They gave me a notebook. I would draw a lot of things from Central America, from our trip.
‘Or I would draw us under a tree, or with a family, or children.
‘It gave me good thoughts. That’s what strengthened me.’
In captivity, as well as the abuse, Arbel endured interrogations, forced conversion attempts and starvation, as they kept her in refugee camps. There were early discussions of selling them or smuggling them out of Gaza.
‘I was held with a baby who was four months old. By the time I was released, he was 15 months old. They carry knives from the age of seven or eight.
‘Three days before I left, the baby aimed a gun at me. He was playing with it. He pointed it at me while I begged his mother to take it down.’
Arbel was released first, emerging alone into a mob surrounded by hundreds of terrorists. Looking pale and terrified, Arbel says she was worried she was going to get snatched away by other gangs.
‘I remember stepping out and seeing that sea of green headbands,’ she said.
‘I was the only woman. My mind was trying to process — am I free? But I’m still surrounded by them?
‘I was terrified, but I knew I had to survive. My thoughts were of Ariel — I had to get back to him.’
For the first time in a year she met an Israeli captive, Gadi Moses. ‘I was already in a state of shock.’
Ariel was released after 738 days in captivity.
‘Since returning, I haven’t truly returned to life,’ Arbel said.
‘What kept him was the thought of me. The possibility that we would meet again. That we might still have a life together.’
Now free, they face a new struggle: rehabilitation, sleepless nights, flashbacks and trauma. Learning how to live again, how to trust the world again. Their home in Nir Oz is gone. They have nowhere to return to. But they have each other.
Arbel and Ariel are raising money for their rehabilitation. You can support them by donating here.