Bar Kupershtein is an Israeli man who was abducted by Hamas on October 7th 2023 while serving as a paramedic and security guard at the Supernova music festival. Kupershtein, who was 21 at the time of his abduction, stayed behind to care for the wounded until the last moment when he was taken hostage.
Bar Kupershtein is the eldest of five brothers and one sister and was raised in Holon, Israel. Up until his abduction Kupershtein had been financially supporting his mother, Julie, his father, Tal, and his four younger siblings, by working various jobs and volunteering with Yedidim.[1][2] It was announced after his release that Kupershtein had been serving in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) at the time of his abduction as a combat soldier in the Nahal Brigade's 932nd Battalion.[3]
Tal Kuperstein, his father, also a paramedic, was severely injured three years prior to the attacks when he spotted a car accident on the side of the road and stopped to help. He later suffered a stroke during an operation leading to his disability and reliance on a wheelchair.[4][5] Tal made an effort to learn how to talk again after his stroke in order to be able to advocate for his son's release from captivity.[6]
Bar Kupershtein working at the festival as a security guard and paramedic when Hamas militants launched a massive surprise assault Kuperstein had stayed behind to care for the wounded until the last moment — when he was abducted and taken in to Gaza.[5] When the Hamas rockets first landed, Kuperstein told his mother that he was packing up his things and coming back home, but instead, he reportedly stayed to help the injured. "He was the one who evacuated the wounded under fire to save lives at the Nova party. He was the one who went back again and again, just to save one more person,” Kupershtein's brother has been quoted as saying in an interview with the Knesset Committee.[7][8]
Kupershtein's family was able to geolocate his cell phone at 8 a.m. on October 7. Several hours later, they found a video and photographs on Telegram of Kuperstein being tied up on the ground.[5] The video depicted Kupershtein bound at his wrists and ankles, with a cord wrapped around his neck, he was recorded shouting his name at the militants and attempting to plead with them to help the wounded Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot.[9]
In July 2025 Kupershtein family and the family of hostage Maxim Herkin released a video showing the two that had been published by Hamas three months prior. In the clip the two are recorded stating, "We are dying here with a pulse, we don't feel human,....We are again 30 meters underground."[10]
In a interview following his release from Gaza on October 13th 2025, Kupershtein described the psychological warfare and physical abuse he endured in captivity, which included torture and apparent intentional starvation. “I remember there were days when there was food for them, and we had none. They just didn’t bring any for us,” Kupershtein has said since his release. Kupershtein also noted a difference in his and other hostages physical conditions compared to their Hamas captors. Noting in the interview that while the captors did not eat in front of them, the hostages could see from their weight and bodies.“We were getting smaller, and they were getting bigger,” he said.[11]
A week after his capture, his kidnappers took him into a room and tortured him. "After a week, I remember they took me to their room, tied me up, of course. When I entered, I got two hard slaps to the face, real ones. I fell to the floor immediately. They dragged me by my legs across the whole room, stomping on me and humiliating me as much as they could," he said to KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting corporation. [11]
Efforts to release
During his captivity, older family members of Kupershtein told his younger siblings, Dvir, Or, Hila, and Yonatan, and other children in the family, that "we expect Bar to come back at any moment and we have to try to live normally." The family also leaned heavily on traditional Jewish religious practice during this time, and started a lot of religious activities, including reciting Psalms, studying Torah and praying. This included a prayer service held at the Western Wall on January 10, 2025, led by the chief rabbis of Israel.[2]
Kupershtein's mother later recounted an alleged phone call with an unidentified man she believed to be a Hamas militant who reportedly scolded her for not being more public in protesting and criticizing the Israeli government, while threatening Kupershtein's life. She reportedly stated that her belief in God made her not afraid of his threats, to which the unidentified man stated “Well done, madam!". After the call she posted to social media requesting Kupershtein's tefillin would remain in use during his captivity, and passed along the tefillin to an Israeli man who set up tefillin stands for Israelis to borrow tefillin to pray.[12] The project became known as Tefillin for Every Hostage, where volunteers would put on tefillin daily as a sign of solidarity for "their" hostage with stations set up across Israeli. Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a gathering for mass tefillin prayers in June 2025.[9]
His family held a public birthday party for Kupershtein at Hostages Square to mark his second birthday in captivity, while close friends posted tributes on social media.[1] In August 2025, one of his siblings attended a nationwide protests to end the Gaza war, stating that he felt that "Today, at least people are doing something." after struggling with his brothers abduction.[13]
Release
Kupershtein was released from Hamas captivity along with 19 other surviving hostages October 13th 2025 after 738 days in captivity.[14] Kupershtein and two other released hostages, Nimrod Cohen and Yosef-Haim Ohana were flown by Israeli Air Force helicopters from the Re'im military base to an Israeli hospital after the hand over.[15]
Post-release activities
On October 15, 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz met with Kupershtein to hear about his captivity and thank him for his actions assisting victims at the Nova festival attack.[16]
On October 30, 2025, Kupershtein led a mass tefillin event as a thank you for those who advocated for his release. “I want all of you to put on tefillin together with me—my dream while in captivity was to put on tefillin, and we’ll do it for the release of all our brothers who are still there,” he told an audience that gathered at Hostages Square in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.[17][18]
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