Daniella Gilboa, a survivor of Hamas captivity, shared a disturbing personal experience on social media after being expelled from a café in Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv, for requesting to use the restroom.
Gilboa, who had entered the café and politely asked the cashier to use the facilities due to an urgent need, was reportedly refused. She described the rejection as a trigger that brought back painful memories of her past trauma, stating, “A small trigger and a pang in the heart that easily takes you back to Gaza,” referring to the experience of being treated as if someone else decides when she could use the restroom.
She later explained that after leaving the café, she returned and asked again for access to the restroom. Gilboa claimed that when she insisted and compared the situation to the captors who decided when she could relieve herself, the cashier allegedly responded, “Who cares that you were kidnapped? They told you no, so that’s it. Leave.”
Gilboa went on to express that no one present intervened or offered assistance. “A business that respects itself should not treat people like that,” she concluded.
The café owner, Eyal Loingt, responded: “A young woman came in, stood at the entrance, and asked to use the restroom. I told her no. These are not public restrooms; they are for café customers only. After 15 minutes, she came back and said, ‘Even in Gaza, they didn’t let me go to the restroom.'”
Loingt continued: “I apologized that she was kidnapped, but there is no connection between the two things. We do not let people who are not customers of the café or passersby use the restroom. There are public restrooms 100 meters down the street. I go every Saturday night to the rally in the square.”
“I didn’t say I don’t care that she was kidnapped,” the owner added. “I don’t know what prompted her to say that. If she had mentioned right away that she was a freed hostage and had trauma, I would have let her in. The fact that she was a hostage only came up the second time she came. If she had mentioned it the first time, I would have let her in. We allow disabled people and pregnant women to use the restroom. This was not personal.”