Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest tells Channel 12’s “Uvda” about his time in captivity, including torture by Hamas, the loss of a tank crew, his close relationship with fellow hostage Gali Berman, and his eventual release.
Content warning: This article contains disturbing images, including torture and ill-treatment.
Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest told Channel 12’s “Uvda” in an interview broadcast Thursday night that he was tortured, including electrocuted, while in Hamas terror captivity.
Angst served in a special tank unit equipped with classified equipment in the 7th Armored Brigade near Nahal Oz during the October 7 massacre, and was the only member of his tank crew to survive the terrorist attack. His crewmate, Capt. Daniel Perez, St. Sgt. Itai Chen and Sgt. Tomer Leibovitz was all murdered and their remains were taken into the Gaza Strip by terrorists.
During torture and interrogation, it is a matter of “die without telling”
“I woke up in a house somewhere in Gaza and couldn’t open my eyes or move my hands – my hands were burned,” Angst said, describing his recollection of the first moments after the massacre.
“I opened my eyes and eight people were sitting in front of me. They started asking questions like ‘Where were you kidnapped from? Where did you serve’.” [in the IDF]? But they spoke to me in Arabic, which I couldn’t understand,” he continued.
“Someone came to me with two wires and put them on my wounds. I felt like I was being electrocuted. I screamed in pain and then he did it to me again,” he told the interviewer.
The report states that the terrorists already knew that Angst was part of a tank crew equipped with classified systems and knew that as the sole survivor he would be able to tell them information that would help the success of future terrorist operations.
“During very difficult interrogations, they kept asking confidential things. Like ‘Can the driver kill someone? Is he armed?’ I kept telling them the driver was just like a normal driver,” he said.
Over time, Angreste’s operational capabilities improved, but Hamas terrorists continued to increase pressure. “They tortured me to the extreme. Electric shocks – this trauma will stay with me forever. The longest interrogation lasted about eight hours and they made me tell things of the ‘die without telling’ category,” he recalled.
Angst also noted that he learned through terrorist radio chats that three of his tank crew members were murdered on October 7. “I locked myself in a room alone.” [after finding out]you understand, it’s all over. I just thought about them and all of our experiences. “
Angst recalls meeting Gary Berman, No Longer Alone
According to Channel 12, Angrest was held in solitary confinement for weeks, both above ground and in underground terror tunnels.
He was then joined by fellow hostage Gary Berman. “I had been with Gary for a long time and had a lot of contact with him,” he recalled.
But he was separated from the other hostages and continues to be interrogated. “I would say to Gary: ‘I’m scared. I don’t know what they’re going to do to me. How am I going to sleep at night?'”
“He tried to comfort me, [but I knew that] If they find out more about me, I’m screwed. ” Angost added.
Angst recalls the massacre of October 7
In interviews, Angst recalled jumping into a tank during the massacre and seeing a white Toyota with green and white license plates. “I rubbed my eyes. How did it get in? Suddenly, we heard gunshots and we asked ourselves, ‘Have they infiltrated the country?'”
Perez directed his tanks from the Nahal Oz post, crushing the approaching terrorists, toward a firing position overlooking Shedjaya. “Shortly after, we were told over the radio to return to the outpost because an incident had occurred. I was passing by where I was sleeping – where I had played backgammon with Tomer (Leibovitz) the day before,” he recalled.
He noted the scene of a fight between the terrorists and Golani brigade commander Major Shiloh Hareven and five of his soldiers, all of whom were massacred at the outpost. Perez told the tank crew to “suppress their emotions,” Angst said.
“‘Our goal is that there will be no kidnapping,’ I don’t know how he said it — how he predicted the future,” Angost added, quoting what Perez told the crew at the time.
“Matan, you have to stay sharp. They will try to catch anyone in the operating room and kidnap them,” Perez warned, Angost reported.
Angst later noted that just after 8:30 a.m., tanks returned to the breached border fence and discovered another wave of terrorist infiltrators.
“I told Perez, ‘Look, they’re coming into the country, they’re coming toward us,'” he told the interviewer.
He pointed out that they faced a dilemma: whether to risk the possibility of tanks coming under anti-tank missile fire by closing in, or to try and stop the wave of infiltrators with long-range fire, which was likely to fail.
Perez instructed the tank driver Angost to “reverse quickly” and drive towards the terrorists.
“As a team, we started to understand that it was either them or us. After Shell Itai [Chen] After the shot was fired, I could see the terrorist flying into the air from the explosion, 50 meters away from me. When I saw this I kept driving, thinking: ‘How can I get rid of them all?’ That’s…a crazy amount. I knew our thing could end at any moment,” he recalled.
Channel 12 noted that Angrest still has difficulty recalling what happened, but the black box recordings fill in some of the gaps. At the end of the recording, someone cries: “Has anyone been hit? Perez! Perez! Perez!”
Angost recalled finding out he had been released
Angost was released in October 2025 after being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip for 738 days.
It was surprising, he said. “They occupied Geely [Berman] And I was somewhere blindfolded. They move them away and suddenly we see [fellow hostages] Aaron Oher and Guy Gilboa-Dalal. “
“A senior terrorist pointed at us and said, ‘You four – leave tomorrow. Life changes. [after being released]. You wake up in the morning and look for your next step. For everyone, the struggle seems to be over and you get back to your normal life. In some ways it goes from zero to a hundred, but in other ways it goes from a hundred to zero. The scars will be there forever,” he said.
