Just two days after being freed from nearly two years of inhumane torment at the hands of Hamas, 22-year-old IDF soldier Matan Angrest spoke about the unimaginable suffering he endured -- and the emunah that kept him alive throughout.

Matan, a tank crewman who was captured in the fierce battle at Nachal Oz on October 7, 2023, shared how his belief in Hashem never wavered, even in the depths of the tunnels beneath Gaza. "It was clear to me that I'd get out of captivity," he said. "The place I was in was bombed, but I wasn't hurt; it was a series of miracles."

He recounted his experiences on Wednesday from Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, where he is recovering from the severe injuries inflicted during his captivity. During the visit, he met with Mrs. Tzili Schneider, founder and CEO of Kesher Yehudi, who gifted him a brand-new pair of tefillin.

Matan's story is one of extraordinary resilience. He was the sole survivor of his tank after it was struck, taken hostage, and dragged into Gaza. His mother, Anat, revealed this week that "Matan underwent very severe torture," describing "severe burns on his right arm and fingers, harm to his vision, and unlivable conditions." His father, Chagai, added that "they treated him like a captured soldier. His condition was very bad; they tortured him. He has a lot of injuries that occurred during the seven months after his abduction. He was taken from place to place, sometimes with seven other men in one pit, and he contended with isolation, starvation, and constant fear."

Despite enduring such cruelty, Matan refused to let his spirit be broken. Even in the earliest days of his captivity, while still reeling from the trauma, he clung tightly to his connection with Hashem. "I insisted on putting on tefillin and getting a siddur and Tanach," he said. "I demanded from the captors to receive those things." Incredibly, his captors agreed -- and even a senior Hamas member provided him with a siddur.

From that moment on, tefillah became his lifeline. "As part of my routine, I prayed three times a day, morning, afternoon, and night," Matan recalled. "It protected me, it gave me hope." In the suffocating tunnels of Gaza, surrounded by cruelty and death, his emunah became his oxygen. "It was clear that I'd get out of captivity. The place I was in was bombed, but I wasn't hurt; it was a series of miracles."

Mrs. Schneider, who listened to Matan's account firsthand, said she was deeply moved by the strength of his neshomah. "He's a true hero who held on to his Judaism even in hell. It was incredible to see Matan's pure faith -- how, amid the horrors of Hamas's tunnels, he found immense inner strength and reconnected to faith and trust in the Creator."