The Israeli hostage released by the Palestinian Hamas movement said on Tuesday that she “went through hell” and was “beaten” during her kidnapping, but was “treated well” during her detention for more than two weeks in the Gaza Strip.
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Yocheved Lifshitz (85 years old) told reporters in Tel Aviv, while sitting in a wheelchair next to her daughter: “I went through hell, and I did not think or know that I would find myself in this situation.” During captivity, “they made sure we didn’t need anything. “They treated us well,” she said.
She was released on Monday evening, along with Nurit Cooper (79 years old), also from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Their husbands remain detained.
“They kidnapped me, and took me on a motorcycle (…) I was lying on the motorcycle, with my body on one side and my legs on the other side, and Al-Shabab (Palestinian youth) beat me on the way,” she said. “They didn’t break my ribs but they hurt me a lot and I’m suffering.” “From difficulty breathing.”
She added that her condition was better during captivity: “A doctor comes every two or three days to see our conditions and make sure we get medicine.”
They took all our needs into consideration, I applaud them for that, they were very polite. They made sure we cleaned and ate. “We ate the same thing as them,” she continued, adding that she was placed on a mattress.
“They seemed to be ready for it. They had been preparing for it for a while, and they had everything men and women needed, even shampoo.”
Ms. Lifshitz said her captors tried to discuss political matters with the hostages but they refused.
“We didn’t want to talk politics with them. We were their hostages, and we didn’t want to. But they talked about all kinds of things. They were very nice to us.”
Hamas special forces kidnapped about 220 Israeli, foreign or dual-national hostages during the bloody attack that left more than 1,400 people dead, most of them civilians, on Israeli territory on October 7.
Since then, the Israeli army has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian Islamic Movement, which announced on Tuesday in its latest report that 5,791 people have been killed since the beginning of the war.
