‘Be strong for me’: Former Israeli hostage Aviva Siegel tells Joel Rosenberg why the deal is urgent to save her husband’s life

Freed Israeli hostage Aviva Siegel spent 51 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza. She was abducted on Oct. 7 from Kibbutz Kfar Azza along with her husband, and was released in November as part of the first agreement between Israel and the terror group. The hostage deal and ceasefire – set to begin on Sunday – is expected to see the release of 65-year-old Keith Siegel, who has been held for over 450 days.

Keith’s name appears on the list of 33 Israeli hostages who will potentially return to Israel in the first phase of the ceasefire. Hamas, however, did not specify whether those hostages were alive or dead. Israel believes that most of them are alive. 

Aviva told ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg that she is certain about one thing, that her husband has been doing as much as he can to stay alive and come back to his family.

In the latest episode THE ROSENBERG REPORT on TBN, Joel asked Aviva: “What was the last thing that you said to Keith? What was that moment like?” 

“I saw him lying on a filthy, dirty mattress and looking at the ceiling. He looked sad because it was the first time that we were separated in different rooms,” she recounted. “I bent down, and I said to him, ‘You be strong for me, and I'll be strong for you’.”

Aviva feels she was lucky to be able to say these words to Keith, to keep both of them going. She has been waiting with hope ever since. 

Yet for many members in her southern Israeli community of Kfar Aza, there is no longer hope. 

“You know, my neighborhood, most of the people are dead. 64 people from my community were murdered, were burnt alive, shot and killed,” she told Joel in her South African accent. “There's a mother that was lying (dead) in front of her children for 17 hours while they hid themselves in a cupboard… Two babies, nine months old, that were left in the crib with their parents killed in front of them. There are so many houses in my community that there's nobody to go back to.”

Palestinian terrorists pulled the Siegels out of their home of some 40 years on that horrific day and drove them to Gaza – in Keith’s car – at gun point. 

“One terrorist was sitting next to me with a knife in front of my face,” Aviva described. 

In Gaza, they were moved around 13 times during their joint captivity period and spent many days in the Hamas terror tunnels. The terrorists forced them to keep silent all the time. 

“I had to just be completely and utterly quiet, not talk. When I spoke for the first time… I forgot what it means to talk. So we had to just keep quiet and lie or sit down on a filthy, dirty mattress on the ground,” she said.

Aviva testifies that she is a person who is “scared of the dark”, “scared of evil,” and “scared of bad people.” 

When asked by Rosenberg how she managed to survive those terrifying moments, she replied: “I was scared so many times because we were threatened so many times that they will kill us. The way that I manage to handle myself… I used to count. I just sit down and just count ‘one, two, three’ until I got to 100.”

Other times she used to find someone she could give her hand to, whether it was Keith or one of the young female hostages.

“To feel that I'm not alone,” she said, especially during the difficult moments in which she was thinking of her grandchildren and wasn’t allowed to cry.

When the Siegels were held outside of the tunnels, they were kept in buildings used by Hamas terrorists to fire rockets at Israel. Rosenberg wondered if the notion of serving as a human shield for the terrorists has ever crossed her mind. 

“What did you think was happening when you were in these buildings with rockets going out, out towards Israel?” he asked. 

“I tried not to think because if I would think, I would think that I would be dead every minute. But there were so many moments that I just wanted to die, that were too difficult for me. When the missiles used to come out from those buildings, the Hamas terrorists used to come and say, ‘don't worry, don't worry, it's us…’ And they used to clap their hands and say, ‘beautiful’. I was disgusted. How can they say beautiful for killing people?” she answered. 

Until the moment she came back to Israel, Aviva was certain that her son was among the many Israelis killed on Oct. 7. 

“I was sure 100% that they killed my son because he has a dog, and I'm sure that he protected his dog, and they just killed him because he protected the dog,” she explained to Joel. 

“Keith, until today does not know that his son is alive. Because he's still in Gaza.”

Watch Joel Rosenberg’s full interview with Aviva Siegel on the TBN website and YouTube.  

THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. EST – on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.