Andrey Kozlov found himself held captive in a darkened room in Gaza, alongside two other hostages, where the sound of a captor typing on a laptop behind a closed door sometimes broke the silence. Recalling his ordeal from a hotel room in a Tel Aviv suburb following his rescue, Mr. Kozlov shared the details of his eight-month captivity along with Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv.
The captors, who remained unmasked, instructed the hostages to refer to them all as Muhammad to conceal their identities. To distinguish between them, the hostages gave nicknames such as Big Muhammad and Little Muhammad. The main jailer, with a rounded face, was dubbed “Muhammad Chubby Cheeks” or “Muhammad H’dudim” in Hebrew slang by the hostages.
Mr. Kozlov, a 27-year-old Russian Israeli, vividly described being shuttled between six different locations in the initial two months of captivity before settling in the apartment in mid-December. In some of the earlier locations, the hostages had minimal facilities, using a pail as a toilet, and facing scarcity of food, resulting in Mr. Kozlov losing approximately 20 pounds during his time in captivity.
