In his first international interview, Sasha Troufanov tells the BBC how he thought he would die in captivity after he was taken hostage on 7 October 2023.
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Thirty-year-old Sasha Troufanov, an Amazon electronics engineer, was taken hostage on 7 October 2023 by Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen. His fiancée Sapir Cohen, mother and grandmother were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza. The women were released after more than 50 days as hostages. He was freed a year ago, after 498 days in captivity.
In his first international interview, Troufanov, on a visit to London, told BBC News that with the return on Monday of Ran Gvili's body meaning all the hostages were back "it felt wonderful. We waited so long for this to happen.
"I was carrying this burden ever since I came back. It was like a weight on my shoulders that kept me from coming back to my life. Although we were released, we didn't really come out of Gaza because our friends and brothers were still there."
But the moment was bittersweet for him as Monday was also the birthday of his father Vitaly. Troufanov only discovered his father had been murdered on 7 October on the day he was released in February 2025 and realised his dad wasn't there to meet him.
Troufanov and Cohen had been visiting his family on Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border with Gaza when Palestinian gunmen stormed their homes. Cohen rolled herself up in blanket and hid under the bed but they were both captured. Troufanov was punched and also stabbed in the shoulder.
"I saw the terrorist with so much anger and hate in his face, holding his knife trying to stab me even more."
As the attackers tried to take Troufanov off the kibbutz he managed to momentarily escape but when he gave up running they still shot him twice in each leg.
"I just felt the rush of pain going through my brain and I fell to the ground then one of the terrorists hit me with the rifle from the back of my head and split it open."
When he arrived to Gaza, he says he was then
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