Shocking new details have emerged about the Arab family who held three Israeli men hostage in Gaza for months.

Hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were discovered cowering in a darkened room of the Aljamal family’s apartment when Israeli forces stormed the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 8th. Dr. Ahmed Aljamal was known to neighbors as a righteous family man whom few would have suspected of being a Hamas accomplice.

“He was a pious man,” neighbor Abdelrahman El Tahrawi tells CNN. “He leads the prayer, then he goes back to his home. He didn’t mix with people, didn’t complain about other people, and no one complained about him. He was a man who minded his own business.”

However, Dr. Ahmed’s outward piety hid dark secrets. The 74-year-old woke early each morning to lead prayers at the local mosque before returning home. Behind closed doors, the three Israeli men suffered horrific abuse under his watch.

Kozlov recounted to CNN how a guard forced him to remain still on a mattress for two days without moving or speaking as punishment for standing near an open window. On another occasion, he was covered with blankets in the height of summer simply for washing his hands with drinking water.

All the while, the Aljamal family went about their daily lives, with oblivious neighbors never suspecting the torture happening just floors away.

Nevertheless, plausible deniability is not an excuse considering Dr. Ahmed’s son Abdallah had served as a spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Labor, a position entrusted only to Hamas members. On Facebook, Abdallah openly praised the terror group’s massacre against Israel on October 7 and posted pictures of his own son dressed in the uniform of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.

Experts believe Hamas’ decision to hide hostages in the homes of trusted civilian families like the Aljamals was a deliberate tactic to draw Israeli forces into devastating urban warfare.