In a remarkable press conference given the day after her release, Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, described how Hamas descended on her kibbutz near Gaza, tied her up, threw over a motorcycle and beat her.
In a remarkable press conference held the day after her release from captivity, freed Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifshitz described her kidnapping by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 as a “nightmare we couldn’t have imagined.”
Speaking from a wheelchair at the hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she is being treated, Lifshitz recounted her harrowing experience: tied up, thrown over a motorcycle, beaten with a wooden pole, her jewelry stolen as her captors drove her away from Nir Oz, the tiny kibbutz where she lived less than two miles from Israel’s border with Gaza.
“I went through a nightmare we couldn’t have imagined. I constantly have the images of what happened repeating in my mind,” Lifshitz said.
Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper, 79, were released Monday after an agreement brokered by Egypt and Qatar. There was no indication of why the two women were chosen for release or what, if anything, Hamas received in return.
Nor was there word on the hostages that remain, including the two women’s husbands. Israeli officials say there are still 220 hostages from the deadly Oct. 7 assault by Hamas on Israeli communities around Gaza.
Eventually, Lifshitz said, her captors escorted her through a “spiderweb” of underground tunnels to a large hall where she was kept for more than two weeks. Hamas provided food, medicine and a doctor to examine them regularly, she said.
“They schooled us with this terrible attack,” she said, lamenting the fact that Hamas took Israeli security forces by surprise.
A video released Monday by Hamas showed the two women being greeted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which transported them across Gaza’s Rafah border with Egypt. In the video, Lifshitz can be seen reaching back out to shake the hand of a Hamas soldier as she says “shalom,” the Hebrew word for “peace” that is used as a greeting and farewell.
