‘SCARED AS HELL’

Freed Israeli Hostage Says She Was Held in a Gaza Hospital

Sharon Aloni Cunio was released alongside her 3-year-old twins in November, but her husband remains a captive in southern Gaza.

An Israeli woman kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel said she fears for her husband, who remains a captive in Gaza more than three months later. Sharon Aloni Cunio told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during an emotional interview on Wednesday that she is “both mother and a father right now” to her 3-year-old twins, alongside whom she was released in late November. She alleged that she, her children, and her husband, David Cunio, were held at Nassar hospital in southern Gaza for the majority of their captivity. Aloni Cunio said that there were three rooms in the hospital used to hold up to a dozen captives each, a claim that supports Israel’s assertions that Hamas has hidden hostages on sites nominally shielded from military actions. (CNN noted that it could not independently verify her account.) Before her release, Aloni Cunio told the Associated Press on Tuesday, her husband told her, “Fight for me. Don’t give up. Please yell what I cannot yell. I’m scared as hell.” She added to CNN that “everything needs to be done in order to make a deal” and bring the remaining 105 hostages believed to still be alive in Gaza back home.