The family of hostage Segev Kalfon said on Thursday that they received a sign of life from him. Kalfon, 27, from Dimona, was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7 and has been held captive by Hamas for 496 days. His family discovered he was a hostage in Gaza after a video showed him being loaded into a pickup truck by Hamas terrorists. In an interview with Ynet, Segev’s family members said that he suffers from medical issues but was not included in the “humanitarian deal,” the 33 hostages on the list in the first stage of the deal. “He suffers from anxiety disorders and takes medication; he has post-trauma from an accident he had at a young age; and he underwent surgery in which plates were inserted into his leg,” his sister-in-law Rotem said. “We understand that they may become infected, and he may need another surgery. How can one determine that someone in captivity is not a humanitarian case? We saw how they came out of captivity, suffering from extreme malnutrition. How is it possible to even classify who is and who is not?” Galit, Segev’s mother, also doesn’t understand the criteria by which it was determined who would be eligible for release in the first stage and who would not. “What we saw on Shabbos was like a punch in the stomach,” she said, referring to the images of Ohad Ben Ami, Or Levi, and Eli Sharabi who were released emaciated and pale – and later testified to severe abuse in captivity, including starvation and being chained. “There was euphoria when the women returned because they looked relatively fine, but I knew that the pictures of the men would be something else. My son has already celebrated two birthdays in captivity. He is 27, and Hamas still sees him as a soldier. I don’t understand how this is happening – we are a country that studies history, how do we not learn from our past?” Galit asked. Segev is the latest in a number of hostages who were seen in captivity by the three male hostages released last Shabbos. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)