After being released by Hamas, the 85-year-old hostage, Yocheved Lifschitz has said that she had "been through hell."
In spite of that, footage has emerged of the 85-year-old hostage shaking hands with one of her Hamas captors and saying “shalom”, a Hebrew greeting meaning “peace”, after being released back to her family.
Yocheved Lifschitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper were released by Hamas on Monday night.
Lifschitz, according to the BBC, said she had "been through hell" and suffered bruises while being kidnapped from her kibbutz in Israel on a motorbike. Lifschitz's daughter Sharone - who arrived in Tel Aviv from London - said Lifschitz and her fellow captives were hit with sticks.
Sharone also said her mother had witnessed a "huge network" of underground tunnels run by Hamas, which she likened to a "spider's web."
Lifschitz was taken into the tunnels, which she described as having "soft, wet ground". She said that after two or three hours they separated five people from Kibbutz Nir Oz into a separate room. She added that there were guards, a paramedic and a doctor.
Yocheved Lifschitz said there was a guard for each of the five people being held hostage in her group.
Her captors "took care of every detail", she says - including women who knew about "feminine hygiene"
Lifschitz said they slept on mattresses on the floor in the tunnels under Gaza, with a doctor coming to visit every two to three days.
A captive who was badly injured in a motorbike accident on the way to Gaza was treated for his injuries.
Lifschitz adds that a paramedic came to see them to bring the medicines they needed.
The BBC report quoted Sharone as saying that after arriving into Gaza, her mother's captors said they "believe in the Quran" and therefore would not hurt her. Lifschitz herself went on to describe clean conditions and guards who took care of "every detail". They were fed white cheese and cucumber - the same food as the captors. Referring to the other hostages taken by Hamas, Sharone said her mother felt "the story's not over until everybody comes back"
Journalist-husband works for the rights of Palestinians
Meanwhile, Oded Lifschitz - Yocheved's husband - is a journalist who for decades has worked for peace and the rights of Palestinians, his daughter told us earlier, BBC said.
Oded speaks Arabic and used to work for newspaper Al-Hamishmar, published in Israel and Palestinian territories.
More recently, he volunteered for a group that transports sick Palestinians from Gaza for treatment in Israeli hospitals.
According to the National Union of Journalists, in 1972 he defended the rights of Bedouin people who were expelled from their homes in the Rafah area, south of Gaza.
In 1982 he was among the first journalists to report on the massacre in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.
He and his wife co-founded their Kibbutz Nir Oz, and after leaving his job at the newspaper, Oded wrote for the local press and published opinion articles in Haaretz newspaper.
Peace Activists
On Monday night, according to the Associated Press, Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper, were taken out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where they were put into ambulances, according to footage shown on Egyptian TV. The women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border. Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.
“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those — some 200 innocent people — who remain hostages in Gaza,” Lifshitz’ daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, said in a statement.
Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv released photos Tuesday of Lifshitz sitting in an armchair, being wheeled in a wheelchair down a hall, soldiers in tow, and kissing unidentified people.
The women were freed days after an American woman and her teenage daughter. Hamas and other militants in Gaza are believed to have taken roughly 220 people, including an unconfirmed number of foreigners and dual citizens.
Lifschitz, an artist and academic in London who spells her name differently to her parents, told reporters last week that her parents were peace activists, and her father would drive to the Gaza border to take Palestinians to east Jerusalem for medical treatment.
Kindness, she said last week, could somehow save them.
“I grew up, you know, with all these Holocaust stories about how all my uncles’ lives were saved because” of acts of kindness, she said.
“Do I want that to be the story here?” she asked. “Yeah.”
On Monday, Hamas released a video showing the handover, with militants giving drinks and snacks to the dazed but composed women, and holding their hands as they are walked to Red Cross officials. Just before the video ends, Lifshitz reaches back to shake one militant’s hand.
Around the same time, Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, released a recording showing Hamas prisoners — most in clean prison uniforms, but one in a bloody t-shirt and at least one wincing in pain — sitting handcuffed in drab offices talking about the Oct. 7 attack. The men said they were under orders to kill young men, and kidnap women, children and the elderly, and that they’d been promised financial rewards.
The Associated Press could not independently verify either video, and both the hostages and the prisoners could have been acting under duress.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas. Iranian-backed fighters around the region are warning of possible escalation, including the targeting of US forces deployed in the Mideast, if a ground offensive is launched.
The US has told Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and other groups not to join the fight. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily across the Israel-Lebanon border, and Israeli warplanes have struck targets in Syria, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank in recent days.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there has been an uptick in rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed militias on US troops in Iraq and Syria, and the US was “deeply concerned about the possibility for any significant escalation” in the coming days.
He said US officials were having “active conversations” with Israeli counterparts about the potential ramifications of escalated military action.
(With inputs from Associated Press)