内容摘要：The game was billed as a birthday celebration of New York’s loveable mascot Ellie the Elephant, but quickly the home team gave its fans a lot more to cheer for.

The game was billed as a birthday celebration of New York’s loveable mascot Ellie the Elephant, but quickly the home team gave its fans a lot more to cheer for.

, the sound of gunfire, mad dashes for escape, scaling down a cliff and ultimately being led to a vehicle that Kozlov believed would bring him to safety. He hadn’t been killed, he rationalized, so he would be rescued. He never considered kidnapping.He sent no messages to his family. He was sure he would survive. He’d be home by night, he thought.

Soon, though, Kozlov was in Gaza, tied with rope. Reality set in. Guns were aimed and blows were delivered. He was certain he knew what would come next.“You are sure that you will spend the last moments of your life like that,” he says, “and maybe tomorrow they will kill you.”Those first days of Kozlov’s captivity were a “disgusting, terrible hell.” Over eight months, he says he was held in eight different houses, guarded by a rotating cast of two dozen militants who lived beside him.

Some, he said, feigned compassion; others treated their captives as animals. In some holding sites, he slept on a wet, sticky mattress that stunk of mold; others had far better conditions. Ropes were replaced by chains until restraints were removed altogether. He knows it could have been far worse.“They didn’t pull out my nails,” he says. “They didn’t torture me with electroshock.”

Andrei Kozlov, an artist who was taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, speaks with The Associated Press during an interview Monday, May 19, 2025, at his studio in New York.

Andrei Kozlov, an artist who was taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, speaks with The Associated Press during an interview Monday, May 19, 2025, at his studio in New York.Napoli president and film producer Aurelio Del Laurentiis presented Leo with a Napoli No. 10 shirt — the same number worn by the late Diego Maradona when he played for the southern Italian team — with the pope’s name on it and featuring signatures from all of the club’s players.

“You’re a No. 10,” De Laurentiis said, referring to the number often worn by a team’s most talented forward.When De Laurentiis introduced Napoli coach Antonio Conte, the pope cut him off and said “I know him from the (TV) screen, I’ve seen him many times.”

Conte has also coached Italy’s national team, as well as Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan.“He’s profoundly Catholic,” De Laurentiis said of Conte. “He’s someone who believes in God very attentively and goes to pray often.”