Health
Children once held hostage still working through trauma: 'Are they coming for us again?'
Dr. Efrat Bron-Harlev, CEO of Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, recently addressed the United Nations about the plight of the children who were kidnapped from Israel by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.
She said that 38 of the 253 people who were abducted that day were children. The youngest was Kfir Bibas, just eight months old at the time.
The child is still in captivity, along with his parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, and his brother, Ariel, who turned five last month.
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Bron-Harlev, a pediatrician, said children released after 50 days in captivity are still, to this day, waking up terrified in the middle of the night.
“They were not allowed to cry, not allowed to laugh, not even allowed to stand up.”
She said the children appeared “like shadows of children. No impressions on their faces. They were not happy. They were not crying. They were mostly very, very silent.”
Thirty-eight of the 253 people abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 were children — including Kfir Bibas, just eight months old at the time (shown above). The child is still in captivity, along with his parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, and his brother, Ariel, who turned five last month. (Bethany Mandel)
Dr. Hagai Levine, chair of the Israeli Association of Public Health and head physician of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, also reported seeing children being afraid to speak.
“In captivity, they were told, ‘If you speak, you will be killed’ — that’s very, very traumatizing,” he told Fox News Digital.
In addition to psychological trauma, the hostages were also in extreme physical danger.
Levine, who is also an epidemiologist, said the risks to the hostages’ lives ranged from the threat of “being murdered to lack of food to lack of oxygen, lack of water (and) infectious diseases.”
‘Every child has a right to health’
Referencing the recent polio outbreak in Gaza, Levine noted that he sent a letter to UNICEF and the World Health Organization reminding the organizations “that every child has a right to health — and this includes Kfir and Ariel Bibas.”
Levine said he was on a bus this summer with children who were formerly hostages as well as children who are relatives of hostages.
“They have the unique ability to cope.”
The young ones attended a U.S. summer camp in July, he said.
“A couple of people called me a White supremacist. A couple of people called me the N-word.”
“I saw songs and jokes,” he said, recalling his observations. “I’m not saying they were happy, but they have the unique ability to cope.”
The doctor said he knows these children have had to grow up quickly — but the “plasticity of the brain” helps children rehabilitate, he said.
Dr. Hagai Levine, chair of the Israeli Association of Public Health, is shown speaking at a press conference near the headquarters of the families of the abductees in Tel Aviv on Nov. 15, 2023. (Hadar Badar)
He said he has encouraged them to play and dance.
However, “there is always a shadow” holding them back, he said — given that at this moment, there are still other hostages held captive.
Helping them regain trust
Levine said these children grew up in a tight-knit community of a kibbutz — and seeing hostage posters everywhere of their neighbors is very real to them.
“It’s really difficult for them to really recover,” he said.
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It is a long process to get these children to be able to trust again, Levine said, and they need someone who is a constant in their lives, especially if their parents were murdered.
He said physical, psychological and educational rehabilitation, such as speech therapy and equine therapy, can help them to regain trust and feel in control.
They “have been in this horrible nightmare” for nearly a year.
He also noted that relatives of the hostages are experiencing survivor guilt, severe depression, anxiety, insomnia and physical symptoms such as tremors.
They are traumatized because they don’t know what happened to their loved ones, and they “have been in this horrible nightmare” for nearly a year at this point, he said.
‘Could have been me’
Roxanne Saar, the aunt of released hostage Gali Tarshansky, age 13, told Fox News Digital, “I feel like it could have been me.”
Saar had been staying at her father-in-law’s home at Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 6, 2023, when she decided to return home that night.
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The next day, 101 civilians at Be’eri were killed by Hamas terrorists and 32 people were kidnapped, according to JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).
Gali Tarshansky’s brother, Lior, 15, and her uncle, Noy Shosh, 36, were among the murdered victims.
Adults from left, above: Roxanne Saar, Gonen Saar (Aroussi), Yehuda Aroussi, Gali Tarshansky, Noy Shosh, Mahol Shosh, Lliya Tarshansky, Reuma Aroussi Tarshansky and Lior Tarshansky. (Family of Gali Tarshansky)
Saar said that the first question the young teenager asked when she was released from captivity after 54 days was, “Where is Lior?”
It was not until after she returned to Israel that she discovered her brother and uncle had been killed, along with her dog, Mocha, as well as friends she grew up with from her kibbutz.
She was held hostage in homes in Gaza with Nova festival survivors and a couple from Kibbutz Be’eri. The husband, Ohad Ben Ami, is still a hostage, Saar said.
“There was no showering, there was no water.”
Saar said that in Gaza, “there was not enough food, there was not enough medicine, there was no showering, there was no water … There was psychological terror.”
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She said the young woman’s captors, some of whom were armed, told her, “Israel does not exist. Your family doesn’t want you anymore.’”
Saar added, “I’m not sure if we know everything … I don’t have any expectations from terrorists who are capable of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl.”
It is crucial, she said, for the remaining hostages to be freed in order for the released hostages to heal.
Gali Tarshansky, above, in July 2023, with her brother Lior Tarshansky. “I don’t think there is anyone in the world who can understand the potential future impact of what happened,” the siblings’ aunt told Fox News Digital, referencing Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath. “Everybody wants to help, but how can someone help with something that we never knew before?” (Family of Gali Tarshansky)
Saar said Gali Tarshansky is living in a different area of Israel today, attending a new school. She is in therapy.
Said Saar, “I don’t think there is anyone in the world who can understand the potential future impact of what happened … Everybody wants to help, but how can someone help with something that we never knew before?”
‘Takes a long time’
Professor Merev Roth, PhD, an analyst who works with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, told Fox News Digital that therapists who are treating released hostages are in uncharted territory.
“Will he come back when I’m really old?”
“All of this is new,” she said. “There is not one case in history that so many kids and families were kidnapped from their houses for such a long time and in such a brutal massacre.”
Roth is one of the founders of First Line Med (FLM), an organization that offers pro bono treatment to victims of Oct. 7.
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She supervises child therapists and treats adult family members of child hostages who were released after 50 or 54 days in captivity.
Roth said she had to treat some of the families in their homes or hotels initially, because they were afraid to go outside.
Tarshansky, left, with her half-sister Eden Tarshansky — who suffered the loss of her mother, Silvia Ohayon, who was killed in Kibbutz Be’eri. (Family of Gali Tarshansky)
She recalled seeing how frightened a three-and-a-half-year old toddler was when the child heard a gardener working outside.
“I remember the girl running into her mother’s body, and her mother immediately took her in her arms. The girl didn’t say a word. She was white, she was shaking, she didn’t even cry,” Roth said.
Another time, when the little girl heard noises outside, Roth said the girl asked, “Are they coming for us again?”
Roth said another child released from captivity is unable to get through a full day of school in kindergarten.
Merev Roth, an analyst who works with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, told Fox News Digital she recalled seeing how frightened a three-and-a-half-year old toddler was when she heard a gardener working outside. (Yehoshua Yosef)
Her father is still a hostage, and Roth said she knows he is in danger and asks her mother, “Is Father dead? Will he come back when I’m really old?”
Roth said the children who were separated from their parents in captivity, or witnessed family members being murdered or wounded, “shattered in the most extreme, brutal way” a child’s sense of safety and trust in the world.
“They become easily frustrated, angry and disassociated.”
Some children had captors who were abusive and threatening; other hostages experienced Stockholm Syndrome, where they identified with their captor, Roth said.
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Antisemitism spreading across the globe is “a big blow,” said Roth. “It added to the feelings that the world went crazy, that everything is distorted.”
She said these children are suffering from “trauma syndrome symptoms,” such as anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and social withdrawal.
They become easily frustrated, angry and disassociated, which means “you are disconnected from your emotional response … You become confused. You cannot concentrate and you don’t react emotionally in your full scope. You are a bit numb,” she said.
The released children (not pictured) are suffering from “trauma syndrome symptoms,” such as anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and social withdrawal, one expert said. (iStock)
Dissociation can also be self-protective, Roth noted.
“It takes a long time until they come back into their senses, which is a good thing, because their psyche protects them from feeling all that they would feel if they were connected, and it would be overwhelming for them.”
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The therapist said these children are struggling to feel normal.
“They do find any channel they can to be smiling and friendly and cooperative. They’re really trying … They are amazing in their coping, but they are injured.”
Play therapy, she said, enables children to reenact real experiences through imaginary scenarios, and gives therapists insight into their inner thoughts.
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“You can see the split of the world into total good and total bad creatures fighting each other … I see complete evil, revenge, abuse and angels,” she said.
“You can also see the other side … life saviors that came from nowhere to save them.”
A seven-year-old boy said he was the “cat hero,” helping the cats he drew to fall asleep and feel less afraid.
He also wrote a touching story with his therapist about a family of kittens who had been kidnapped and were found. Roth said that the child told his therapist, “Now we can finish therapy, because the kitties are back home.”
Said Roth, “I’m always overwhelmed by the beauty and the strength and the resilience.”
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Research conducted partly aboard the International Space Station (ISS) suggests that “microgravity” could help scientists fight drug-resistant superbugs, according to a report from SWNS.
Microgravity is the condition in which people or objects appear to be weightless, NASA states.
Experiments by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison show that viruses and bacteria behave differently in near-weightless conditions. In space, they develop genetic changes not typically seen on Earth.
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Lead study author Dr. Phil Huss, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, noted that interactions between viruses that infect bacteria — known as phages — and their hosts play an “integral” role in how microbial ecosystems function, per the SWSN report.
Viruses that infect bacteria were still able to infect E. coli in space. However, the way those infections unfolded was different from what is typically observed on Earth.
E. coli is a group of bacteria that can live in the gut and are harmless most of the time, according to Cleveland Clinic. (iStock)
Bacteria and phages are often described as being locked in an evolutionary arms race, Huss said, with each side constantly adapting to outmaneuver the other.
“Microgravity is not just a slower or noisier version of Earth — it is a distinct physical and evolutionary environment,” researcher Srivatsan Raman, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at the university, told Fox News Digital.
“Even in a very simple phage-bacteria system, microgravity altered infection dynamics and pushed both organisms down different evolutionary paths,” he added.
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While these interactions between bacteria and phages have been well-studied on Earth, few studies have examined them in space, where they can lead to different outcomes.
For the study, Huss and his colleagues compared two sets of E. coli samples infected with a phage known as T7. One set was incubated on Earth, while the other was grown aboard the ISS.
The ISS is a microgravity environment — where people and objects appear weightless. (NASA / SWNS)
The team found that after an initial slowdown, the T7 phage successfully infected E. coli in space. Genetic analysis later revealed clear differences in how both the bacteria and the virus mutated in space compared with how they behaved on Earth, per the report.
Huss said the phages grown aboard the space station developed mutations that could improve their ability to infect bacteria or attach to bacterial cells. At the same time, the E. coli grown in space developed mutations that could help them resist infection and survive better in near-weightless conditions.
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Raman said some of the findings were unexpected. In particular, he noted, microgravity led to mutations in parts of the phage genome that are not well-understood and are rarely seen in Earth-based experiments.
The E. coli grown in space developed mutations that could help them resist infection and survive better in near-weightless conditions. (iStock)
Researchers then used a technique called deep mutational scanning — a method that tracks how genetic changes affect function — to examine changes in the T7 receptor-binding protein, which plays a key role in infection.
Additional experiments on Earth linked those changes to increased effectiveness against E. coli strains that are normally resistant to T7.
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“Equally surprising was that phages shaped by microgravity could be more effective against terrestrial bacterial pathogens when brought back to Earth,” Raman told Fox News Digital.
“That result suggests microgravity can reveal combinations of mutations that are difficult to access through standard laboratory evolution, but [are] still highly relevant for real-world applications.”
“Microgravity is not just a slower or noisier version of Earth — it is a distinct physical and evolutionary environment.”
Huss said the findings could help address antibiotic-resistant infections, including urinary tract infections, which have been increasing in recent years.
“By studying those space-driven adaptations, we identified new biological insights that allowed us to engineer phages with far superior activity against drug-resistant pathogens back on Earth,” Huss told SWNS.
Study limitations
“Experiments on the ISS are constrained by small sample sizes, fixed hardware and scheduling constraints,” Raman noted. “Samples also experience freezing and long storage times, which can complicate interpretation.”
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He added that the research has broader implications.
“Studying microbes in space isn’t just about space biology,” Raman said. “These experiments can uncover new aspects of viral infection and microbial evolution that feed directly back into terrestrial problems, including antimicrobial resistance and phage therapy.”
Space should be treated as a discovery environment rather than a routine testing platform, one researcher said. (iStock)
He added that space should be treated as a discovery environment rather than a routine testing platform. The most effective approach, according to Raman, is to identify useful patterns and mutations in space and then study them carefully in Earth-based systems.
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Scientists also noted that the findings highlight how microbial ecosystems, like those associated with humans, could change during long space missions.
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“Understanding and anticipating those changes will be essential as space travel becomes longer, more routine and more biologically complex,” Raman said.
The findings were published in the journal PLOS Biology.
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A simple blood test may detect Crohn’s disease years before symptoms appear, according to a new study reported by SWNS.
Canadian researchers say the discovery could enable earlier diagnosis and potential prevention of the chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The test measures the immune system’s response to flagellin, a protein found in gut bacteria. Researchers found that this response is elevated in some people years before Crohn’s develops.
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The findings, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, highlight the “interplay” between gut bacteria and immune system responses as a key step in the disease’s development, per the SWNS report.
Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract that causes persistent digestive symptoms, pain and fatigue, significantly affecting quality of life. Its incidence among children has doubled since 1995, according to official figures.
Crohn’s disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes swelling and irritation of the tissues, called inflammation, in the digestive tract. (iStock)
The presence of flagellin antibodies long before symptoms appear suggests that the immune reaction may help trigger the disease, according to research leader Dr. Ken Croitoru, clinician-scientist and professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Toronto.
A better understanding of this early process could lead to improved prediction, prevention and treatment, the expert said.
“We haven’t cured anybody yet, and we need to do better.”
“With all the advanced biologic therapy we have today, patients’ responses are partial at best,” Croitoru told SWNS. “We haven’t cured anybody yet, and we need to do better.”
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“We wanted to know: Do people who are at risk, who are healthy now, have these antibodies against flagellin?” he said. “We looked, we measured, and yes indeed, at least some of them did.”
This new research is part of the Genetic, Environmental and Microbial (GEM) Project, which has followed more than 5,000 healthy first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease worldwide since 2008. The project collects genetic, biological and environmental data to better understand how the disease develops.
The presence of flagellin antibodies long before symptoms appear suggests that the immune reaction may help trigger the disease, according to the lead researcher. (iStock)
The study followed 381 first-degree relatives of Crohn’s patients, 77 of whom later developed the disease. Of those, more than 30% had elevated antibody responses.
The responses were strongest in siblings, underscoring the role of shared environmental exposure, researchers said.
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So far, 130 of the study participants have developed Crohn’s, giving researchers a rare opportunity to study its earliest stages. The average time from blood sample collection to diagnosis was nearly 2-½ years.
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Previous GEM research showed that an inflammatory immune response targeting gut bacteria can appear long before the disease develops.
The study followed 381 first-degree relatives of Crohn’s patients, 77 of whom later developed the disease. (iStock)
In healthy people, gut bacteria coexist peacefully and play an essential role in digestive health — but in Crohn’s patients, the immune system appears to mount an abnormal response against the microbes, experts say.
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The Canadian team also confirmed that this pre-disease immune response was associated with intestinal inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction, both hallmarks of Crohn’s disease.
The study did have some limitations, including that it did not include experiments to show exactly how the immune response might lead to Crohn’s disease. (iStock)
Research team member Dr. Sun-Ho Lee, a gastroenterologist, commented that this new study supports the idea of designing a flagellin-directed vaccine for certain high-risk individuals to prevent the disease, according to SWNS.
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The study did have some limitations, including that it did not include experiments to show exactly how the immune response might lead to Crohn’s disease.
As a result, the researchers could not determine the biological steps linking the immune reaction to the onset of the illness. “Further validation and mechanistic studies are underway,” they noted.
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This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
A new study suggests that exercise can treat depression just as effectively as therapy and antidepressants.
A Cochrane review looked at 73 randomized controlled trials involving nearly 5,000 adults with a depression diagnosis. The studies compared exercise with either other active treatments — such as therapy or medication — or with “inactive interventions,” like being placed on a wait list or in a control group.
The London-based team discovered that exercise may be “moderately effective” compared to no therapy in reducing depression symptoms, according to a press release.
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“There is probably little to no difference in depressive symptoms between people undertaking exercise and those receiving psychological therapy,” the authors noted in a study discussion on Cochrane’s website, and “there may be little to no difference in depressive symptoms between people doing exercise and those taking antidepressants.”
The analysis discovered that exercise may be “moderately effective” compared to no therapy in reducing depression symptoms. (iStock)
The review found that light- to moderate-intensity exercise was more beneficial for easing depression symptoms than vigorous exercise.
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No single type of physical activity stood out as the best, but mixed programs that included resistance training appeared to be “more effective” than just aerobic exercise.
Some forms of exercise, like yoga and stretching, were not included in the analysis, but are areas to be further researched, the review noted.
Mixed exercise programs and resistance training appeared to be “more effective” in easing depression symptoms than just aerobic exercise. (iStock)
Professor Andrew Clegg, lead author of the review, wrote in a statement that exercise “appears to be a safe and accessible option for helping to manage symptoms of depression.”
“This suggests that exercise works well for some people, but not for everyone, and finding approaches that individuals are willing and able to maintain is important,” he said.
Study limitations and risks
The researchers noted that there was a high risk of bias in some of the studies included in the review, and noted that the long-term effects of exercise on depression symptoms remain uncertain.
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Clegg noted that “larger, high-quality studies” are needed to determine which types of exercise work best and whether the benefits last over time.
The comparison between exercise and other treatments and how they benefit people’s quality of life were also “inconsistent and uncertain.”
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“Adverse events from exercise were not common,” the researchers mentioned. “The small number of participants who experienced them usually reported muscle and joint problems or worsening of depression.”
About 21 million U.S. adults had at least one major depressive episode in a recent year — equivalent to roughly 8.3% of all U.S. adults, according to the National Institutes of Health. (iStock)
“Future research should focus on improving the quality of the studies, working out which characteristics of exercise are effective for different people, and ensuring different types of people are included in the studies so that health equity issues can be considered,” they went on.
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About 21 million U.S. adults had at least one major depressive episode in a recent year — equivalent to roughly 8.3% of all U.S. adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Depression symptoms include feelings of sadness, hopelessness, anxiety, guilt or irritability, as well as loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities. Fatigue, poor concentration, sleep disturbances, appetite changes and social withdrawal are also red flags, in addition to thoughts about dying or suicidal ideations.
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The condition is most often treated by antidepressant medications and psychological therapies, such as talk therapy. Anyone who needs help should consult their doctor.
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