“I will be a former hostage forever. It will forever be a part of my life.” — Andrei Kozlov At 28, Andrei Kozlov was working security at the Nova Festival when he was kidnapped by Hamas. When he first heard the cars approaching, he assumed they were rescuers. Confident he’d be saved, he didn’t send a message to his family, never imagining he could be taken hostage. But when Hamas arrived, they tied him up with a rope like an animal, beat him, and dragged him into Gaza. The first days of Kozlov’s captivity, he says, were a “disgusting, terrible hell.” Over the next eight months, he was moved between eight different houses, guarded by a rotating group of about two dozen terrorists who lived alongside him. He was treated like an animal. He often dreamed of escaping but knew he wouldn’t make it out alive. At times, he even wondered if he could somehow telepathically send a message to his parents. Now free, Andrei spends most of his time painting, transforming his trauma into art. He’s adjusting to life after captivity, grateful for his freedom. But the pain hasn’t left him, especially for those still held hostage. “Sometimes I feel what it means to have a war and sometimes I feel the pain of every hostage. I feel pain of families who don’t know where their loved ones are right now. … I feel pain of people who left their houses in the south. I feel the pain of all the people who lost their houses. I feel pain.”
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