"I hugged her tightly and told her I'm sorry, we're going to die": The experiences of Israeli mothers abducted with their children on October 7.

Abstract

Objective: On October 7, 2023, 252 people from Israel were taken captive by Hamas in Gaza. Among those abducted were 16 mothers with their children. Although some research has uncovered the experiences and implications of abduction and captivity. This study was conducted to uncover the experiences of the mothers who were abducted with their children, with most held hostage in Gaza, and to implement a traumatology conceptualization and context.

Method: This study focuses on 15 mothers who survived being abducted with their children. Available interviews and testimonies were searched for on mainstream Israeli news channels and by performing manual searches using systematic keywords on YouTube and Google. The data collection period spanned November 2023 to April 2024. These were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Four themes were identified: the kidnapping, feelings and thoughts during captivity, surviving captivity, and the mothers' roles in captivity. These themes were portrayed through two intertwined axes comprising the mother facing her own subjective suffering and the mother in her protective maternal roles.

Conclusions: The current findings shed light on the peritraumatic experiences and methods utilized by the abducted mothers to preserve their children's and their own survival and to mitigate suffering when death was imminent. As such, these findings uncover a new pattern of peritraumatic responses to extreme traumatic experiences. Additionally, they reveal how, during captivity, maternal roles protected the mothers' sense of subjectivity in a traumatic environment that would usually abolish a sense of autonomy and subjectivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).