The images of their blood-soaked teenage daughters being leered over by Hamas terrorists shocked the world and brought negotiators back round the table.
Now the mothers of the five youngest women still held hostage in Gaza have come together for their first ever joint interview to demand diplomats finally bring them home.
‘While we sit here in this nice light our girls are being kept hostage’, Ayelet Levy-Shachar tells the Daily Mail from the Hostage Forum offices in Tel Aviv.
Her daughter, Naama, 19, was seen in the footage pleading with the terrorists alongside fellow captives Liri Albag, 19, Daniela Gilboa, 20, Karina Ariev, 19, and Agam Berger, 19, on October 7.
Each of their mothers made the agonising decision to release the horrifying three-minute Hamas Go Pro video in a desperate bid to get politicians to fight for them.
It shows the young women limping, injured and bloodied as their hands are bound. They are lined against the wall by Palestinian terrorists having been taken from Nahal Oz base during their mandatory National Service as unarmed observers.
‘You dogs, we will step on you.’ One screams at the girls. Another of the terrorists is seen pointing at the girls calling them ‘Sabaya’, an ancient islamic term that can mean female sex slave, before leering over Karina in her snoopy pyjamas, saying: ‘You are so beautiful.’
Dr Levy-Shacher said: ‘It’s been eight months… Our girls are still subjected to their violence, it’s obvious. You don’t see sexual violence in the video but we are fearful of it.’
The Daily Mail first highlighted the girls’ plight in January by publishing still images from the footage which went viral and saw their cases raised at the UN and The Hague.
It sparked global condemnation and saw the mothers introduced to world leaders including Rishi Sunak and David Cameron.
But despite their promises to get them home, five months have passed and they remain in Gaza.
Daniela’s mother, Orly, 48, directly addressed the British leaders she met.
‘Mr Sunak, Mr Cameron we met just a few months ago – I didn’t even think we would be here for eight months and my daughter still isn’t home,’ she said.
‘I am begging you, please, do whatever you can. You have the power, you are world leaders, you can do it.’
While the mothers share the horror at the images coming out of Gaza, they fear the world is forgetting the unimaginable suffering of their darling daughters.
Ms Gilboa said: ‘When you ask for a ceasefire you have to ask for all the hostages to be released – it can’t be separate.’
Dr Levy-Shacher agrees. ‘People are calling for a ceasefire, but what should a country do in order to protect itself to return its innocent civilians and people that are there?’ she said.
‘What is the right thing to do? Do we not have a right to defend ourselves to bring our girls home? Remember this is a terror attack that started on October 7th and while we sit here in this nice light our girls are being kept hostage.’
The mothers all say they are living with guilt. ‘When I eat, when I shower,’ says Karina’s mother, Ira, 44.
´Before the shower reaches a warm temperature for those first few moments I think of her and what she is going through.’ says Ms Gilboa.
‘If I am preparing a sandwich for school for my little boy, I think soon I will be making it for Naama’, Dr Levy-Shacher says. ‘If I am folding laundry, I think soon I will be doing Naama’s.
‘Everything I do, I think of her all the time and miss being with her and doing things with her and for her.’
Shira Albag, 51, whose daughter Liri’s face is etched with terror, said she is trying not to imagine the sexual violence.
‘I am trying not to think about this, but you cannot not’, says Ms Albag. ‘But we also heard what was going on from the hostages that were released, we understand what is going on in there.’
The full 13 minutes could not be shown because of the levels of violence and Ms Ariev, Ms Gilboa, and Agam’s mother, Meirav, 48, say they haven’t got it in them to watch any of it.
‘I didn’t see the film, it’s very difficult for me to see Agam in this impossible situation,’ Ms Berger said.
‘You see only the picture of her with blood in her mouth, it’s very difficult for me. I need to be strong for her.’
Ms Gilboa has also tried to avoid it.
‘I didn’t have the strength, it’s too much for my soul,’ she says. ‘But it was viral and it was everywhere so I saw some of the pictures from the movie, but I avoided it. It is too hard for me.’
But Dr Levy-Shacher and Ms Albag watched it together. The GP said: ‘At first I was reluctant to watch the video, it was Shira, Liri’s mum, who said, ‘Let’s go watch together.’
‘By then I knew that Naama was speaking in this video. I really did want to see her face and to see her speak. And I see her bloodied, injured face but very close and familiar in the frames.
‘You see her saying “I have friends in Palestine”, referring to her being part of a peace organisation.
‘She’s begging for her life. And that’s what I see – I see her strength and I see her vulnerability. And I miss her watching that, I just miss her so much.’
Ms Albag says that she wants to see everything despite it being really hard.
‘I decided to watch everything, I saw Liri, and I saw the fear in her eyes,’ she says.
‘But I also saw that she is brave – she is trying to speak with them and understand, she is asking if someone speaks English. Maybe if she talks to them she can save herself or her friends.’
The women fear that hostages are being forgotten and the video release was an attempt to get leaders back to the negotiating table.
Ms Albag says: ‘We didn’t start the war, they attacked us Saturday morning, they raped, murdered and killed young women and children.
‘The video of our daughters is a reminder of what happened that day. You see young women, still in their snoopy pyjamas, beaten and threatened that they would be shot.
‘People do not realise that our girls were sitting there, in their safe room, surrounded by the dead bodies of friends for three hours.’
Ms Ariev, whose husband and daughter described the footage to her, said: ‘You see the terrorists in the video praying, in front of the girls.
‘I do not know which God they are praying to? Which God permits this? There are little girls there, captive, babies and old people.’
Dr Levy-Shachar adds: ‘The prayers seem like an act of humiliation, to show their power over these young women.’
The mothers are saying they are clinging to hope after receiving a sign of life two months ago. They don’t know the nature of the evidence, just that the girls are alive.
Ms Gilboa and Ms Kariev say that the last they saw of their daughters was late January when Hamas released a psychological video featuring another female hostage Doron Steinbrecher.
‘Before the video, Hamas released a photo with ‘Time is Running out’ , then my brother told me there was a video and I screamed,’ says Ms Gilboa.
‘I only saw it once, it’s very hard for me to see any photos of before October 7 and after.
‘I try to save my soul, not to see pictures and videos of any kind.
‘I am avoiding to keep myself strong. If I see these videos I will be finished.’
But despite avoiding the worst of the footage, the last eight months are taking an unfathomable toll on the women.
‘I tell myself once she is back, I will deal with my own emotional situation,’ Ms Gilboa says.
‘For now I have a goal to bring her home.’
Ms Berger finished by addressing her daughter, in the slim hope that somehow her words might reach her adored 19-year-old who she has been fighting every day to free.
‘Agam, you are coming back just a little bit more before you come home,’ she says.
‘Don’t forget what you wrote about in your diary when you were 19 years old, that you are sure God is with you in every step.
‘Be sure that God is with you there, guarding and protecting you, continue to pray to give power to others and keep your Jewish identity, don’t be afraid you have the power in you.’
For each of the mothers, they ask that the politicians negotiating a deal finally answer their prayers and bring their loving daughters home.