When the beatings wouldn’t stop, and the tunnels went black, Segev Kalfon didn’t have weapons, a phone, or a voice to call for help. What he did have—what he says was the only thing that kept him alive—was faith.
“I had a one percent chance of surviving—and I did,” said Kalfon, 27, who was held captive by Hamas in Gaza for over two years before being released in a recent ceasefire deal. “All that’s left is to believe. That’s it. Faith.”
In a quietly powerful interview with @LouderCreators shared by the Israeli Embassy in the US, Kalfon explained how the darkness of captivity stripped everything away. “A person in this situation has nothing around them,” he said. “When you believe in something, you have something to lean on.”
“I had a one-percent chance of surviving – and I did.”
In an interview with @LouderCreators, Segev Kalfon reflects on the faith that carried him through the unimaginable, and the moment he heard his mother’s voice after a year of silence. pic.twitter.com/nGtV2WFURl
— Embassy of Israel to the USA (@IsraelinUSA) November 22, 2025
Kalfon’s story echoes the quiet resistance of other hostages—Jewish captives who, whether secular or religious, turned inward and upward in the face of inhumanity. Some recited Psalms. Some whispered Shabbat blessings over water. Some simply survived another hour. Together, they created a silent chain of spiritual defiance.
See: Returned hostages found God and faith in captivity
Kalfon said he witnessed “many miracles” during his captivity, even as he endured repeated beatings, torture, and efforts by his Hamas jailers to force him to convert to Islam. “In my darkest moments I knew I was facing a great test,” he said. “And if I survived every single day—and every day there was hell—there was a reason.”
That reason, he said, was revealed the day he walked out.
Freed hostage Segev Kalfon is released to his home from Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan, October 26, 2025. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90
This past week, Kalfon met US President Donald Trump at the White House, alongside other freed hostages. In a letter to the president, later shared by Channel 12 News, Kalfon said: “In the most difficult moments, when hope faded away, the thought of big America and of your leadership helped me believe that one day, I will be able to leave Hamas captivity. You, Mr. President, were the light for me in the darkest moments in the dark tunnels.”
After two years underground, Kalfon emerged to remind the world of something powerful: Israel’s hostages are not just bodies—each one is a soul, a story, a survivor.
And sometimes, one percent faith is all it takes.
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