Former hostage of Hamas urges Vail community to take action to help those still in captivity
Moran Stella Yanai speaks to crowd of over 250 attendees
Olga Barron/Courtesy photo
A crowd of more than 250 filled the Vail Four Seasons Resort’s conference room on Thursday, Sept. 12, to hear a Jewish Israeli share her story about being held hostage by Hamas for 54 days.
The event was hosted by Chabad of Vail, to give the woman, Moran Stella Yanai, the ability to speak with the “ultimate aim of securing the return of all the hostages,” said Dovid Mintz, Chabad of Vail’s rabbi.
“When the 252 hostages were taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7, each of our families grew by 252 people,” Mintz said. “The terrorists sow evil, but it’s up to each and every one of us to harvest kindness.”
‘I could say a nightmare’
Yanai described herself as “a daughter, a sister, a mother of walking on four (legs), an artist.” On Oct. 7, 2023, the resident of Beer Sheva, Israel, attended the Nova music festival to sell her handmade jewelry.
It was supposed to be her big break. Instead, Yanai became one of the agents when they attacked Israel that day.
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At 6:29 a.m., Yanai was manning her booth when she saw rockets in the sky, “and everything changed,” she said.
“I could say a nightmare. I could say a horror movie. But no word will give you the sense that we had at that time,” Yanai said.
People around her were laughing, screaming and dancing, and “I don’t know which reaction to choose,” she said.
Yanai ran with others by car and then on foot. “Nobody knows what to do, your mind is refusing to accept the situation,” she said.
As she ran, Yanai called her father and told him she was being shot at, and she was hiding in the trees. “He didn’t understand, I didn’t want to stress him,” she said.
Yanai also texted her mom: “‘I don’t have battery, I love you.’ I didn’t want to say goodbye,” she said. “That’s the last words that my parents heard.”
Yanai managed to escape two of the three times she was captured by hiding her true identity. She spoke the Arabic words she knew and showed her necklace, which spelled her middle name, Stella, in Arabic.
The third time she was captured, 13 Hamas agents dragged her from the field where they found her and ripped off her jewelry. “When they ripped off the bracelets from my left hand, they accidentally carved the first letter of God’s name on my hand,” bringing her peace, Yanai said.
The phrase, “do not resist, surrender, I promise you everything will be OK,” echoed in her mind, she said.
Living in Hamas captivity
Yanai was held in seven places over her 54 days in captivity, staying in families’ homes after Hamas agents removed them from their houses to host the hostages, she said. She lost half her hearing and 12% of her body weight, broke her leg in three places, and had thousands of lice in her hair when she returned home.
She was mistaken for a soldier due to the army-style pants and combat boots she was wearing, and then for a spy when Hamas agents learned she was unmarried and had no children. In reality, 40 years old at the time of the attack, Yanai was 22 years removed from her service in the Israeli Defense Forces, Israel’s army.
The guards, she said, stayed near the captives all day, every day, including while sleeping and eating. Yanai took it upon herself to try to communicate with her captors, though they did not speak a common language.
“I had to understand who they are. I had to understand their agenda,” she said. “Even if they tried to tried to break me mentally every single day, I didn’t care. I had a purpose.”
Yanai once had a gun pointed at her head because she said something wrong, nearly died of food poisoning, and was punished for crying, she said.
At a very low moment, she banged her head against the wall until the guards pushed her back on the mattress where she slept. As she fell, she again saw the first letter of God’s name on the wall, she said. The letter encouraged her to surrender to survive, believing that God was protecting her.
After 54 days, Yanai was released, knowing nothing about the state of her family or her country after nearly two months in captivity.
“You need to understand that I really believed that Israel was burning, that I didn’t have a home to go back to,” she said.
“I didn’t know the scale of the event. I didn’t know how many people were kidnapped or how many were killed.” Yanai said she is “still hearing testimonies today” of what happened on Oct. 7.
Yanai reentered Israel at 3:30 a.m. “I saw thousands of people in the street, celebrating as if I’m their sister, as if I’m their family. I’ve never seen Israel like that. It was beautiful,” she said.
‘It starts with you’
Yanai said she came away from her experience as a hostage with “several messages.” Primarily, she has decided to serve as a voice for the hostages.
“I have a mission, I have an obligation, I promised that I will do everything possible until they come back,” Yanai said. “I cannot speak about peace while my brothers and sisters and dead bodies are still inside Gaza.”
Yanai urged the crowd to “be smart, not right” on social media, and to take action to help the hostages.
“It starts with you, the people 鈥� it depends on you woke up in the morning 鈥� and how you left your house in the morning, with what agenda, it starts with you,” Yanai said.
