CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour drew backlash on Monday for stating that Israeli hostages were likely “treated better” than Palestinians in Gaza, prompting her to later apologize.
The 20 remaining living Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas were set free on Monday as part of the peace agreement put forth by President Donald Trump to end the Israel-Hamas war. Amanpour claimed on a special edition of “CNN News Central” that these hostages were treated better than the “average Gazan.”
“It was a terrible, terrible two years for them because not only are, they’re, you know, they have probably been treated better than the average Gazan because of the pawns and the chips that Hamas had,” Amanpour told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins. “Now Hamas has given up all its leverage by the way by giving them all up. So that is a victory for the Israelis.”
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Amanpour also added that much of the “horror and terror” experienced by those hostages was the result of Israel’s actions in Gaza, “because they were also in the war zone.”
Amanpour later apologized for her statement, saying on CNN International that her comments were “insensitive and wrong.”
“But I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips. It was insensitive and wrong,” Amanpour said. “From speaking to many former hostages and their families, like everyone I’ve been horrified at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years. They’ve told me their stories of barely being able to breathe in the tunnels, not being allowed to cry, being starved and made to dig their own graves – and of course today, some of the hostages are coming back in body bags.”
Earlier live on air, I spoke about what a day of real joy this is, for Israeli families whose loved ones are finally being returned from two years of horrific Hamas captivity, and for civilians in Gaza, who have finally had a reprieve from two years of brutal, deadly war.
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 13, 2025
The hostages held captive by Hamas suffered immensely and endured inhumane torture, rape, malnutrition and more. They were held in dark tunnels without sunlight, their loved ones or proper nutrition, including Israeli hostage Tal Shoham, who told Reuters that guards locked him into a tiny dark chamber with “concrete walls, a sandy floor and an iron door” where he struggled to even breathe.
“We were treated like animals. I mean, even animals won’t be kept in such inhumane conditions, but this is the way they treated us,” Shoham said.
The guards sometimes beat Shoham and the other men who were held captive with him, Reuters reported.
A report by The Dinah Project found that Hamas used sexually violent acts on women as a “deliberate genocidal strategy,” the BBC reported in July. Five witnesses reported at least four separate instances of gang rape, and seven reported at least eight instances of rape or severe sexual assault.
Amit Soussana, an Israeli woman who was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, suffered from sexual violence while in captivity, the U.S. Embassy of Jerusalem reported. One of the guards, who called himself Muhammad, held a pistol to her while she was bathing and forced her to commit a sex act on him, The New York Times reported. While she was in captivity, Hamas terrorists chained her left ankle in a child’s bedroom and often beat her in front of other hostages to instill fear.
Naama Levy, a 19-year-old hostage, was abducted on Oct. 7 and dragged into Gaza while “bloodied and bound.” Released hostages witnessed her get raped several times and threatened to assault her more if she resisted. She was kept in a caged area, forced to wear rags and was denied hygiene, according to The Times of Israel.
“I suffered severe malnutrition, indescribable hunger and many untreated injuries. I was kept in unbearable, unsanitary conditions with the constant fear that each moment could be my last,” Levy later recounted. “My time being held hostage will remain carved into my body and soul for the rest of my life.”
No female hostages were among the living 20 who were released on Monday.
Hamas terrorists abducted and murdered 4-year-old Ariel Babas and his 9-month-old, Kfir, in November 2023, and claimed that the boys died from an Israeli airstrike. Forensic and intelligence findings confirmed that the captors brutally murdered the boys with their “bare hands.”
Or Levy, a 33-year-old Israeli, was held in a small, unlit room for 491 days and suffered from severe malnutrition. Upon his release, he lost over 40 pounds and required hospitalization. He slept in a tunnel that had air “thick with mold” and slept on a hard floor.
During the barbarous Oct. 7 attack, Hamas terrorists shot Israelis and dragged their corpses out of their cars, played with severed body parts of victims and burned Israelis’ bodies. A disturbing footage released by the Israeli Embassy in November 2023 showed one terrorist taking a garden hoe and hacking a man’s neck while he was still alive until the head was completely severed from the body.
Two years since the war began, over 60,000 Palestinians and 1,983 Israelis have died, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and the Israeli Ministry on Foreign Affairs.
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