Israeli Hostage Details Her Ordeal: 'I Went Through Hell'

Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, released with Nurit Cooper, says she was beaten with sticks during abduction
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 24, 2023 6:42 AM CDT
2 Elderly Israelis Released by Hamas: 'I Went Through Hell'
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was held hostage in Gaza after being abducted during Hamas' bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israel, speaks to members of the press a day after being released by Hamas militants, at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday.   (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Two elderly Israeli women who were held for more than two weeks by Hamas after being abducted on Oct. 7 have been released, and one of them is speaking about her experience. Haaretz and the Times of Israel report that 79-year-old Nurit Cooper and 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, who were both taken from their homes in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas attack, were released Monday evening. Their husbands reportedly still remain as hostages in Gaza. "I went through hell," Lifshitz said in a statement from Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, after her release, per Haaretz. "They went rampant in our kibbutz. ... Masses mobbed our homes. They beat people, took some hostage. They didn't distinguish between young and elderly, it was very painful."

Lifshitz—who the AP notes is the only one of four hostages so far released to speak publicly—says that the militants took her watch and jewelry and beat her with sticks during the motorcycle ride to the border, leaving her ribs injured and causing her to have trouble breathing. After being forced to walk "for kilometers on wet dirt" to Gaza, Lifshitz says she and others were told by their abductors that they were "people who believe in the Koran and wouldn't hurt us." She notes that the hostages were kept in clean conditions and with access to medical care, and that their kidnappers were very chatty. "We told them—no politics," she says, per Haaretz. "But they talked about all sorts of stuff. They were very friendly to us."

Lifshitz says the hostages even ate the same food as their abductors, which included pita, cheese, and cucumber. She was photographed shaking hands with one of her kidnappers upon her release. "They were ready for this, they had been preparing for a while," she notes. "They had everything women would need and men would need. Even shampoo and conditioner."

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Ichilov Hospital manager Ronni Gamzu says that both Lifshitz and Cooper are being monitored for now, and that at least one of them should be released within the next couple of days, per Haaretz. "We are taking care of their mental and medical state, all done in contact with their families," Gamzu says. The Israel Defense Forces says that there are about 220 people still being held hostage by Hamas, some of them foreign nationals, per Haaretz. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)

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