Former Gaza hostage David Cunio was repeatedly told by his captors that his wife had moved on, he shared with Channel 12 in an interview on Monday.
The 35-year-old was abducted from his home on October 7, 2023, along with his wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, and his then-3-year-old twin daughters, Yuli and Emma. The four of them, along with Cunio's sister-in-law Danielle Aloni and then-5-year-old niece, attempted to hide in their house's safe room, only for Hamas terrorists to set fire to the house.
Cunio attempted to block the incoming smoke with a thick towel, but eventually was forced to flee out of the window along with Yuli. The two were caught outside the house, while the rest of the family was caught separately and kidnapped to Gaza.
"Suddenly I see Sharon out of the corner of my eye, being dragged by one of the terrorist," Cunio told N12 about being taken to Gaza. "I shouted, 'My wife, my wife!'"
"As soon as I got to the vehicle, he asked me where Emma was," Sharon recalled.
An IDF helicopter shot at the Hamas vehicles as they made their way to Gaza, killing a kibbutz member and wounding Sharon, Cunio, and Yuli with shrapnel. Throughout their ordeal, they still had no idea what happened to Emma.
"The whole time we were asking them, telling them there was another girl who looked really similar to Yuli named Emma, and that she was her twin and if they could find her," Cunio said. "But nobody knew, there was such chaos."
Once they reached the house in Gaza where they'd start off being held, Cunio described, he felt that he had to protect his wife and daughter, as the only man there.
"I'd see the two Hamas members guarding us sleeping," he said, "and the knife under the bed, and I wondered if I could do something." But even if Cunio had succeeded in killing the two guards, he had no hope of escaping that way, he decided.
On the tenth day of the war, the house Cunio and his family were being kept in was bombed, and the three were transferred to the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis.
"Yuli was in silent mode," Cunio told N12. "Her sister wasn't at her side, she didn't understand what was happening with her sister. We don't know, we don't have answers for her. She's asking questions you don't know how to respond to."
At the hospital, the family was finally reunited with Emma. She was skinny, neglected, and had rashes, and had been brought so that Hamas could film a propaganda piece of the family.
"We were holding her and she didn't recognize us," Cunio said, "She looks at us and just keeps crying."
Eventually, Sharon was able to get Emma to calm down by singing the children's song "Red Eleinu Aviron" (Come Down to Us, Airplane).
A family divided again: 'I was dying of fright'
On day 49 of their captivity, Sharon, Emma, and Yuli were released as part of a deal Israel made with Hamas. "The worst moment of my life is when I was separated from Yuli, Emma, and Sharon," Cunio recounted. "I couldn't stop telling Sharon that I was dying of fright. I asked everyone in the room to not give up on me, to get me out."
Only a few weeks later, Cunio was removed from the hospital and taken down to Hamas' tunnels below Gaza, where he would spend the remainder of his two years of captivity.
On his first day, Cunio recalled, he asked one of the Hamas terrorists who spoke Hebrew about his twin brother, Eitan. "The last message I got from him had been 'Save me, I'm burning in my house with my family.' I was convinced he was dead, and I wanted to know more."
The terrorist told Cunio that they had Eitan there and brought him to a different room - only for Cunio to learn that the hostage the terrorist described was Eitan Horn, not Eitan Cunio.
Horn and Cunio remained close during their captivity, but Cunio shared that he found it difficult to say Horn's name. "I would say 'Eitan' and just start to cry," he remembered.
It wouldn't be until the last day of his captivity that Cunio would learn that his brother was alive.
Cunio experienced physical, psychological torture
Cunio detailed the extensive physical and psychological torture he withstood during his time in captivity. "There was a period of time when we were on 250 milliliters of water and half a pita per day," he recalled. "Complete darkness, and you can hear people's stomachs. We pleaded with them to give us another spoonful of jam, something else small, but they didn't give us anything."
Despite steadily growing weaker from the inhumane treatment, Cunio and the other hostages had to walk for hours through the tunnels. "We thought we'd walk for an hour or two... From ten in the morning until 11 at night, we walked in those tunnels."
Cunio described moments of anguish and despair, but also a fragment of hope he was able to hold onto. "I had a hair tie belonging to my girls that I found in my pocket, and bracelets I made from date pits," he shared. "I would sit with them, close my eyes, and pray. I'd talk to them, tell them I love them, that they are my most precious things in the world." This connection to his daughters gave Cunio the strength to hold on to reality when things seemed darkest.
Hamas members lied to Cunio about his family, he shared, telling him that his wife had moved on and might have been with someone else. "It slowly penetrates, that garbage," he said. "No matter how fake it sounds, in there it felt completely real."
On October 8, 2025, Cunio was finally informed that he was going to be released. He was overjoyed to be reunited with his younger brother, Ariel, who had also been taken hostage. The two of them conducted a video call with their family on the morning of their release.
"Suddenly, I see that everyone in my family is still alive," Cunio described. "Everyone, everyone, not even one missing."
Cunio was shaking when he met his daughters again for the first time after his captivity. "All I wanted," he shared, "was for them to run up to me and hug me."
Cunio was amazed at how much his daughters had grown. "Their communication, how they talk to Sharon, the sentences that connect and don't get stuck in the middle, it's like all the little things changed. Their hair was long, long, long."
"It's not easy to return from captivity and try to build a family as if nothing ever happened, especially when you have little girls," Cunio concluded. "They're slowly coming to trust me again, to want me around them more. Things are starting to get back in place."