“I spent 505 days as a hostage—held deep beneath the ground. We were watched constantly by a surveillance camera. A bomb was planted above us, rigged to detonate if Israeli forces came too close. We were told we would be blown up if anyone tried to save us. We were threatened, degraded, and at times tortured—not treated as people, but as objects to be controlled and broken.” Tal Shoham was held hostage for 505 days. This is his story. “I am not a soldier. I was kidnapped on Oct. 7 from my in-laws’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. My wife and children were with me. When terrorists couldn’t break open the door of our safe room, they came in through the window. They dragged me out, threw me into a trunk, and then paraded me through the streets of Gaza.  Before we were separated, I looked into my nine-year-old son's terrified eyes and made a choice no parent should ever face. I told him the truth—that I didn’t know if we were going to die. I couldn’t lie to him in what might have been our final moments together.  For 50 agonizing days after that, I did not know if my family had survived. It was a rare flicker of hope when I learned in November they were about to be released. The men who held us didn’t see us as human. They tortured us for fun. Sometimes they would light pieces of paper on fire to suck up the small amount of oxygen from the tunnel. We would choke and have to lie on the floor to avoid suffocating. When I walked out of that tunnel in February, I made a vow: I would speak for those who can’t. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Hamas captivity. And every day that passes makes it harder for them to survive.”