"Restoring the autonomy of the returning hostages is not trivial"

“We can be ready for the return of hostages in 15 minutes. The beds are ready, and a head nurse regularly checks our preparedness. We know they will return, that they will be fine, and that we will care for them. We must think this way, that the world will return to normal. When we see the heroes who have already come back from captivity speaking about their brothers and friends still in Gaza, we have no choice but to stand behind them and join them,” said Prof. Noa Eliakim Raz, head of the Returning Hostages Department at Beilinson Hospital, speaking at the Mind the Tech London 2025 conference of Calcalist and Bank Leumi.

Eliakim Raz spoke in conversation with Calcalist journalist James Spiro. “We are sitting here celebrating this conference, but at this very moment there are still 48 hostages in Gaza,” she said. “About four weeks ago, the Ministry of Health released a comprehensive report on the situation of the hostages, which I co-authored. We now know much more about the long-term consequences of captivity than we did at the start, and we are committed to a lengthy rehabilitation process.”

“In November 2023, I had the privilege of being part of the team that treated the first abductees who were released. Then, unfortunately, we had more than a year to prepare for the second agreement, and I accompanied abductees who returned in January 2025. During that time, we had to invent everything. We began building a protocol, considering every nuance that could arise, and developing a therapeutic response for the returning abductees. We didn’t know exactly how it would work, and we are still refining it.”

Eliakim Raz explained that the protocol is divided into three stages: “The first stage covers the initial days of returning home. Those first days are critical, but they are only a small part. The more important challenge is to understand the whole picture. It’s easy to assume that once people return home, the story ends. But real rehabilitation begins in the ward. That’s the second stage. For us, it’s vital to give them flexibility, because in captivity they lost the ability to make even the smallest decisions, like when to go to the bathroom. Restoring their autonomy is not trivial.”

“The third stage is the clinic we built. Israel has a long history of wars, and decades of research following the Yom Kippur War provide important insights into what happens to those who return from captivity. We know that the body remembers. There are long-term physical and psychological consequences. Soldiers who were captured in 1973 show signs of aging more quickly than their peers who fought but were not captured. That’s why we’re creating a proactive protocol, not just responding, but knowing in advance what to monitor and how to care for them.”

She also spoke about broader lessons learned: “One thing we have mastered is broad collaboration. I am head of the internal medicine department, and like me, everyone in the Return Department has another role in the hospital. We had to bring together people from different fields, who had never worked as one team, and make them operate flawlessly. That was the challenge, and we documented it, almost like a recipe book. And it wasn’t just Beilinson’s team. We worked with the army, the Ministry of Health, the Shin Bet, the media, institutions that don’t usually collaborate. This ‘unnatural cooperation’ worked because we had a clear protocol and defined goals. That is a lesson in itself, and we now have a detailed model for how to achieve it.”