Die Before You Speak: Inside the Brutal Torture of Israel’s Most Secret Hostage

For over two years, the full story of Matan Angrest remained a closely guarded secret while he languished in the tunnels of Gaza. Now, following his release this past October, the soldier known by his captors as "The Diamond" is finally breaking his silence. In a world exclusive interview, Angrest describes the impossible weight of being the sole survivor of the "Lion Kings," a secret tank crew that engaged in a legendary battle of heroism on October 7. As a high-value asset, Angrest was subjected to specialized, agonizing interrogations by Hamas terrorists who were desperate to unlock the classified data contained within his specialized tank. His story is one of unimaginable physical pain, psychological warfare, and a silent oath to die before betraying the security of the State of Israel.

The Battle of the Lion Kings

The morning of October 7 began with a frantic scramble as Matan and his three crewmates, Commander Daniel Peretz, gunner Itay Chen, and loader Tomer Leibovitz, jumped into their tank. As they sped toward the border, the reality of the war became clear when Matan spotted a white Toyota with Palestinian plates. "I rub my eyes. How did he get in?" he recalls. The crew immediately began a desperate defense of the Nahal Oz outpost, crushing terrorists under their treads. Commander Peretz, sensing the magnitude of the invasion, issued a haunting command over the radio: "Disconnect the emotion, guys. Our goal is that there be no kidnapping event." He seemed to predict the very fate that would eventually find them.

The final two minutes of the crew's struggle were captured on the tank’s internal black box. After engaging waves of terrorists and seeing enemies "flying through the air from the blast," the tank was struck. The recording ends with a desperate cry: "Is anyone hit? Peretz! Peretz! Peretz!" Of the four heroes, only Matan would wake up in Gaza.

Torture and the "Diamond" Secrets

Matan woke up in a house in Gaza, unable to move his burned hand and surrounded by eight men. The terrorists quickly realized they had captured a "different kind" of hostage, a combatant from a high-tech, classified tank unit. For weeks, he was held alone and subjected to brutal interrogations. "Someone came to me with two cables, put them on my wound, and I felt like I was being electrocuted. Screaming in pain. And then he did it again," Matan shares. The terrorists were obsessed with the tank's systems, asking if the driver could kill and how the gunner fired.

Matan had to navigate a minefield of lies to protect the IDF's tactical secrets. "In the really difficult investigations I went through, there are things that fall under the category of 'die and do not tell,'" he explains. One interrogation lasted eight hours straight, testing his resolve to the absolute limit. It was only six months into his captivity that he learned through a captor’s radio that his three brothers in arms, Daniel, Itay, and Tomer, had fallen in the battle. The news shattered him, and he spent weeks in isolation, mourning the friends who had fought by his side.

The Return from the Abyss

After 738 days, the end came without warning. Matan and a fellow hostage, Gali Berman, were blindfolded and moved. When the blindfolds were removed, they saw other Israeli hostages, and a senior terrorist official pointed at four of them, saying, "You four, you are leaving tomorrow."

Returning to Israel has been a transition Matan describes as "zero to a hundred, but also a hundred to zero." The struggle for normalcy is ongoing, as the scars of electric torture and the loss of his crew remain. "You wake up in the morning looking for the continuation, what's next. Everyone thinks the struggle is over and you return to living as usual. The scar will always remain." Today, he works through his trauma alongside other survivors, carrying the secrets he protected and the memory of the Lion Kings who never made it home.