2023-10-24 14:15:31
Yocheved Lifshitz, the 85-year-old woman, who was one of two hostages released late yesterday by Hamas, said she had been beaten by militants when they took her to Gaza on October 7, but acknowledged that she was treated well afterwards. during his two-week captivity in the Palestinian enclave.
The woman recounted the “hell” she went through when she was kidnapped in Israel and taken through a “spider web” of tunnels in Gaza and criticized her country’s Army for not having prevented the attacks by the Palestinian group.
“I went through a hell that we had never imagined,” she said in a hospital in the city of Tel Aviv, hours after Hamas handed her over to Egyptian authorities.
She claimed that Hamas militants who infiltrated Israel on October 7 “razed” the Nir Oz kibbutz, the farming community where she was kidnapped along with her husband, who is still being held, and others.
She was freed along with Nurit Cooper, 79, also a neighbor of Nir Oz, three days after the release of two other American women. Lifshitz’s husband, Oded, 83, remains a Hamas captive.
At the time of being kidnapped, he said, the border fence between Israel and Gaza “was of no use” and the barrier was “blown up” by a “mob” of Hamas fighters who immediately flooded the kibbutz.
Beatings, captivity and liberation
Lifshitz said that on the way to Gaza she was hit with sticks that hurt her ribs and caused her to have difficulty breathing.
Once in captivity, he said he went through a tunnel and arrived at a large room where another 25 of the 222 hostages who the Army says are being held in Gaza by Hamas were gathered.
“They told us that they believed in the Koran and that they would not harm us, that they would give us the same conditions as in the tunnels.”
After about two or three hours, she and four other hostages from the Nir Oz kibbutz were taken to a separate room where they were given mattresses and where they were visited by doctors every two days, who brought them medicine.
“The treatment towards us was good,” he acknowledged. His captors made sure the conditions were sanitary. “They cleaned the bathrooms, not us,” he pointed out.
Asked about conversations with her captors, the former hostage said that they “tried” to talk. “We told them then, no politics. We didn’t answer them about politics. They talked about all kinds of things. They were very kind to us. They took care of all our needs, it must be said,” she repeated.
The woman complained about “the lack of knowledge” by the Israeli military and Shin Bet internal security services about what Hamas was planning and said it “seriously harmed” Israel.
A journalist asked her why she shook the hand, apparently, of one of her captors, when she was transferred to a Red Cross ambulance, and she repeated again that they were treated with “sensitivity.”
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