Toddler Twins Endured ‘Russian Roulette’ as Hamas Hostages, Barely Fed or Let Use Bathroom: Mom – The Messenger

An Israeli mom who spent 52 days held hostage by Hamas terrorists with her twin toddlers recounted the horrors of captivity Monday calling each day another round of "Russian roulette."

Sharon Alony-Cunio, 34, also said she and her 3-year-old daughters, Julie and Emma, remain "torn" because her husband, David Cunio, is still a prisoner of Hamas.

"It's a Russian roulette," she told Reuters in an exclusive first interview. "You don't know whether tomorrow morning they'll keep you alive or kill you, just because they want to or just because their backs are against the wall."

Alony-Cunio said one of her daughters was separated from the rest of the family when they were abducted from the Nir Oz kibbutz near Gaza during the surprise Oct. 7 attacks that sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Alony-Cunio said gunmen set fire to her house, then grabbed her as she climbed out a window to escape the blaze.

After 10 days the family was reunited and held with 12 other hostages, with the group sometimes forced to share rations that were just enough for just six.

"Everyone gave up food for them," she said of her daughters. "You don't know if in the evening there will be a pita [bread] so in the morning you save some for the evening. Everything is very calculated, a quarter of a pita, half a pita to keep for the next morning."

The girls also had a hard time waiting to be allowed to go to the toilet and had to use a sink or trash can instead, she said.

"Sometimes when there was a power cut, they let us open the door, they drew the curtain and then we would whisper," she said. "How do you keep a child together for 12 hours with whispers only?"

Evert day, Alony-Cunio said, was marked by "crying, frustration and anxiety."

"How long are we going to be here? Have they forgotten about us? Have they given up on us?" she said.

Alony-Cunio said the group was held above ground and moved several times but declined to provide more details.

More than 100 of about 240 hostages were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a recent cease-fire but 137 are believed to still be held captive.

David Cunio was separated from his wife and kids three days before they were released on Nov. 27, Alony-Cunio said, adding that she's "petrified I will get bad news that he is no longer alive."

"My children are torn," Alony-Cunio said. "I am torn without my second half, the love of my life, the father of my daughters who ask me every day, 'Where is daddy?'"

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Toddler Twins Endured 'Russian Roulette' as Hamas Hostages, Barely Fed or Let Use Bathroom: Mom - The Messenger