The southern city of Dimona welcomed a former Israeli hostage, Segev Kalfon, with open arms on October 26, when the 27-year-old arrived at his home after two years in Hamas captivity. 

Tens of thousands of Dimona residents poured into the streets to welcome Mr. Kalfon, who was held for 738 days before being freed in early October together with 19 other living hostages in the American-backed hostage deal. Residents held signs and Israeli and American flags, and posters of Mr. Kalfon decorated the city of about 40,000 residents in the Negev desert. 

“I just spoke with Segev,” the mayor of the city, Benny Biton, said. “He is just so full of thanks — to U.S. President Trump, to Steve Witkoff, to Arabella Kushner for her heartwarming note. Segev just can’t believe he’s home. He is beyond thankful for everyone both here in Israel and abroad who worked so hard to bring him back,” Mr. Biton told The New York Sun.

“It is so special to greet Segev with the rest of Dimona,” Tal Mazgauker, who went to high school with Mr. Kalfon, said. “It was an amazing and emotional moment to finally see him,” she told the Sun. “We can breathe again. I can’t even begin to describe the excitement and happiness in this city tonight.”

“We prayed for so long for this to happen,” Ms. Mazgauker said. “Even my 4-year-old son and the kids in his daycare know who Segev is. They were so happy to welcome Segev home today.”

Mr. Kalfon’s grandmother, who lives in an assisted-living facility at Dimona, was ecstatic that her grandson was back. She was photographed wearing a T-shirt with Mr. Kalfon’s photo on it and the words, “Now my heart is complete again.” 

Mr. Kalfon went through a number of medical checks at Sheba Medical Center before being released and had been resting before making the eventful journey to Dimona.  

Mayor Biton said that the streets were so packed with people that it took Mr. Kalfon at least three hours just to get home from the entrance of the city. “It feels like Israel’s Independence Day here. This is the best gift Dimona as a city could have gotten,” he said. “Segev is such a special person. I’ve known him since he was a baby as well as his parents ever since they made aliyah to Israel from Morocco years ago.”

Mr. Kalfon was kidnapped at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, as he tried to flee. Hamas terrorists massacred 378 attendees of the festival and abducted 44 people. The terrorists forced Mr. Kalfon onto a white truck and drove him blindfolded into Gaza, striking him with rifle butts along the way. 

Mr. Kalfon, who was among the last living captives of the Nova party to be released in October, told Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper that Hamas kept him in a mosque at the beginning, then later moved him to safe houses and finally to the underground tunnels of Gaza. They beat and starved him, while forcing him to dig tunnels. He also said that he refused to take part in a Hamas propaganda video because he did not want to worry his family in Dimona. 

“I thought about my parents and my family,” he said. “I didn’t want to say that I was suffering or starving, or that a tunnel collapsed on me. Even though every day there was a danger to your life, every minute you survived was a miracle.”

“Death becomes your best friend,” Mr. Kalfon commented. “You talk to death all the time. Nothing is certain. You have no food, no communication, and they do everything to make you suffer.” 

“A bottle of water was like gold,” he recalled. 

Mr. Kalfon has also talked about trying to observe a semblance of Jewish holidays in Hamas captivity, including Yom Kippur, on which he fasted twice during the two years he spent in Gaza. “Faith is the basis for everything,” he said. He also did his best to observe the Jewish Sabbath. 

“There are 82 synagogues in Dimona,” Mayor Biton told the Sun. “Every Sabbath, thousands of congregants would pray for Segev’s return home. This is what faith is all about. There is no greater joy and justice to see Segev back with his family in the city that has waited for him for so long.”