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As groups of Israeli hostages were released from Gaza in recent days, an army of medics, child protection experts and trauma specialists battened down the hatches and shielded them from the media spotlight.

But with a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas now in its final 24 hours, a picture has started to emerge about the dire conditions in which the freed hostages were being held by the terror group over the last seven weeks.

Their relatives have spoken of plastic chairs as beds, irregular meals of bread and rice, and hours spent waiting for the bathroom.