Former Oct. 7 hostage at Brown: ‘They hurt me on purpose’

PROVIDENCE — Maya Regev, who was abducted along with her brother from the Nova Music Festival Oct. 7 and held captive in Gaza, spoke here Oct. 8, three years and a day after her capture.

Regev, speaking at Brown RISD Hillel, described her life before the music festival, how she ended up at Nova, the chaos of Oct. 7 and her brutal experiences in captivity.

Brown student Eli Levin said of Regev’s talk, “The sheer strength it took, of perseverance, came through in every word she had to say. It’s going to stick with me for a long time.” 

Regev was vacationing in Mexico when a friend invited her to the festival. She and her brother, Itay, decided it would be too good to miss.

“It was, I think, until that day, the best party that's ever been in Israel,” Regev said. “It was literally that good ... I remember standing in the main stage with Omer Shemtov, with Itay, my brother, and some of my friends, and I’m hugging one of my friends, and I'm telling her, ‘Wow, Mica, I'm having so much fun, I can't believe we have, like, six more hours. Like, I'm so excited, I'm so happy that I came.’”

Then the music stopped and the DJ announced a red alert. Such alerts are common in Israel, so Regev and her friends waited for trouble to pass. It soon became clear this was different. 

A police officer told her, “One woman got shot in the head. There are terrorists in Israel. You need to escape.” She and her friends began running away, through fields.

Regev’s phone rang; it was her father. “I didn't want to answer the phone, because I didn't want him to hear all the screaming, all the gunshots coming from everywhere, people, you know, dying,” she said. “I didn't want him to know that I'm running for my life, because I knew that if they just come to where I am, and I didn't want to risk. So, I didn't answer any of his calls at that time.”

After more than an hour, Regev’s phone rang again. It was Ori Danino, a friend of a friend. After escaping, he returned to save Regev and her friends.

He picked them up, but the car was stopped by terrorists, who captured them all. Danino died in captivity.

The conditions in captivity and the treatment she received were appalling. Shot in the initial attack, she had no medical treatment for more than a week.

“He lifted my leg up, he started tilting it,” Regev said of a Gazan doctor. “He hurt me on purpose, and he screamed at me, ‘You're going to die here. You deserve to be here. We're going to kill all the Jews. Nobody cared about you. Nobody is fighting for you.’”

A Gazan teacher was assigned to watch Regev. “She showed me videos of the stuff she teaches her kids, her students. She showed me videos of kids wearing kafiya, holding guns and screaming ‘death to the Jews.’” 

“People ask me again, ‘Could you see any humanity in those people?’” Regev said. “No, I couldn't, because if she was really human, she would give me more food, she would treat me, they would give me painkillers.”

Regev lived in captivity with a Gazan family. “I was in a family home, surrounded by kids from age 4 to 14, walking around me, talking to me like it's normal.”

Regev continued, “So when people ask me, ‘Do you think there are any innocent people in Gaza?’ No, I'm sorry, but no. I don't think that, because I lived with them, I lived among them.”

Her family in Israel, her brother still in captivity, God — and Guy Illouz, kept her going. Illouz and Regev met in the hospital. He was shot three times, in the hand and in the back, after “watching all of his friends die.”

“One day, I'm calling his name, and he's not answering,” Regev said. “Guy died from his wounds right next to me, a day and a half after we met, because he didn't receive the right medical treatment.” This was why she needed to go on: She alone knew how Illouz died — and his family “deserve to know what happened to him.” 

Faith helped her. “I can say that at the lowest place I've ever been — you know, I was in hell, I was in a place where I was again hated simply for being Jewish,” Regev said. That “was the place I felt God the most.” 

“Trust yourself, and trust God that he knows what's good for you,” Regev said as she concluded her remarks. “Be grateful for what you have, and be grateful for what you don't have, because if you — if it's not yours, then it's not meant to be yours.”

Asked if she had any advice for Americans, she noted that she spoke at the University of Texas at Austin the same day as Hasan Piker, an influential anti-Israel activist who, the ADL notes, has "expressed explicit support for...Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah."

“Everything you hear, everything you see online, the easiest thing to do is just to repeat the slogan, just to be a part of something,” she said. “Even if it's something you believe in, please check before you go and you spread it, because it's important.”

When released in November 2023, a few days before her brother, she underwent multiple surgeries for the bullet wounds in her leg — and the damage inflicted on her by Gazan doctors.

“Everything's been positive,” said organizer Lev Kotler-Berkowitz, “I mean, her story is just really unbelievable, and being able to really engage with it and hear straight from her is an experience a lot of people really value. Just being able to learn new details, hearing her tell it is just unbelievable.” 

The evening was organized by Brown RISD Hillel, the Jewish Alliance, Temple Emanu-El, Temple Beth-El, Congregation Beth Sholom, Chabad of College Hill and StandWithUs, in addition to individual supporters.

DANIEL MARGOLIS is the editor of Jewish Rhode Island.