An Israeli hostage released by Hamas has described her ordeal after she was kidnapped by gunmen and taken into a tunnel system in Gaza during the Palestinian militant group\u2019s deadly assault in Israel on October 7, saying \u201cI went through hell.\u201d <\/p>\n
Yocheved Lifshitz, a frail 85-year-old grandmother who was one of two hostages released by Hamas on Monday, recounted the moment that militants snatched her from her home in the kibbutz of Nir Oz and drove her away on a motorbike towards Gaza, a \u201cpainful act\u201d during which she said she was beaten and sustained bruises. <\/p>\n
Lifshitz said she was forced to walk on wet ground and descended into an underground tunnel system she likened to a spiderweb, where she was greeted by \u201cpeople who told us we believe in the Quran\u201d and promised \u201cnot to harm\u201d her and her fellow hostages. <\/p>\n
Lifshitz\u2019s daughter Sharone, who helped convey her mother\u2019s comments to reporters outside a hospital in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, called it a \u201chuge network\u201d of tunnels. <\/p>\n
Lifshitz said she was initially grouped together with 25 other people before her captors separated her into a smaller group with four other individuals from her kibbutz. She said they slept on mattresses on the floor of the tunnels, ate the same food as Hamas fighters and received regular treatment from doctors during her incarceration. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey really took care of the sanitary side of things so that we didn\u2019t get sick,\u201d Lifshitz added. <\/p>\n
Each of the five hostages in her group received their own doctor and there was a paramedic present who supervised medication, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were very generous to us, very kind. They kept us clean,\u201d Lifshitz said. \u201cThey took care of every detail. There are a lot of women and they know about feminine hygiene and they took care of everything there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lifshitz also accused the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet intelligence service of not taking threats from Hamas \u201cseriously\u201d and said the costly Gaza border fence erected by Israel had done nothing to protect her community from Hamas\u2019 attack. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe lack of awareness by Shin Bet and the IDF hurt us a lot,\u201d she stressed. \u201cThey warned us three weeks beforehand, they burned fields, they sent fire balloons and the IDF did not treat it seriously,\u201d she continued. <\/p>\n
Lifshitz <\/strong>explained how this culminated in the attack on Nir Oz in southern Israel on October 7. <\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden on a Saturday morning, everything was very quiet. There was a hard pounding on the settlement,\u201d Lifshitz<\/strong> said. Not long after, \u201chordes\u201d of Hamas fighters broke through the kibbutz\u2019s \u201cexpensive\u201d fences and kept coming in their \u201cdroves,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was very, very difficult and unpleasant,\u201d a visibly upset Lifshitz added. <\/p>\n As she concluded her remarks, Sharone said her mother\u2019s feeling was that \u201cthe story\u2019s not over until everybody comes back.\u201d <\/p>\n Hamas released Lifshitz and her neighbor and friend Nurit Cooper, 79, on Monday, and later they were reunited with family members who rushed to their bedside at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv. <\/p>\n Lifshitz\u2019s grandson Daniel, who heard of her release while staying at a hotel in Eilats with other evacuees from Nir Oz, said Monday that news of the women\u2019s release sent a jolt of joy through the hotel and hope that others may be freed soon. <\/p>\n \u201cFor this community to see these two old women was just an amazing thing,\u201d said Daniel Lifshitz, who took a helicopter from the hotel to see his grandmother in the early hours of Tuesday. <\/p>\n More than a quarter of the Nir Oz community are dead or remain missing after the Hamas terror attack on October 7, which killed more than 1,400 people in barbaric raids, triggering Israeli reprisals that threaten to tip into regional conflict. <\/p>\n The release of the two women takes the total number of captives freed to four, but more than 200 hostages are believed to be trapped in Gaza, some within the labyrinth of Hamas tunnels dug beneath the coastal strip. <\/p>\n The remaining hostages include Lifshitz and Cooper\u2019s husbands, Oded Lifshitz, 83, and Amiram Cooper, 85. <\/p>\n \u201cMy father is there and so many other people we know are waiting for good news about everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on with them. Not even know if they\u2019re alive or what their situation is.\u201d <\/p>\n For decades, Lifshitz and Cooper lived within the close community of Nir Oz, once home to 400 people near the Gaza border. Being so close to the barrier fence, it was one of the first communities targeted by Hamas militants \u2013 and one of the worst hit. <\/p>\n Rows of houses now stand devoid of life, their windows broken, bedrooms torched, and residents\u2019 possessions strewn all around. Video footage shows dried blood smeared on beds and floors, the walls pocked with bullet holes. <\/p>\n Lifshitz is one of the community\u2019s founders and worked as a photographer and a teacher at the regional high school, according to a Nir Oz community statement. <\/p>\n Cooper was also a long-term resident and worked in early childhood education and at the local paint factory, the statement said. <\/p>\n On Tuesday, Eti Uziel, head nurse at Ichilov hospital, said both women appeared to be in \u201cOK medical condition.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThey will stay with us tonight and tomorrow,\u201d Uziel said in a video released by the hospital shortly after the women\u2019s arrival. <\/p>\n \u201cRight now, for them and family members, it is a very, very emotional situation, and we are happy that they are here with us.\u201d <\/p>\n The latest hostage release comes amid growing international pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of hundreds of others still held captive in Gaza. <\/p>\n They include nationals from countries including Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Germany and Thailand as well as Israeli civilians and soldiers. <\/p>\n Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to the deadly October 7 attacks, and is cutting off Gaza from water, fuel and food as it pounds key targets with airstrikes. <\/p>\n So far, more than 5,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the relentless Israeli campaign, according to Palestinian health authorities. <\/p>\n The sustained bombardment of the enclave despite the presence of so many Palestinian civilians has angered Arab nations and drawn condemnation with public protests worldwide. <\/p>\n US President Joe Biden on Monday called on Hamas to release its hostages before talks could start on a ceasefire. <\/p>\n For the families of those held, there\u2019s no time to waste. <\/p>\n Daniel Lifshitz said seeing his grandmother had shown him that other hostages need to be freed as soon as possible. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m telling you we have to be fast, seeing my grandmother like that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe clock is ticking and\u2026 bringing all those hostages back is so evident now \u2013 it\u2019s the top mission now for everybody.\u201d <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n An Israeli hostage released by Hamas has described her ordeal after she was kidnapped by gunmen and taken into a tunnel system in Gaza during the Palestinian militant group\u2019s deadly assault in Israel on October 7, saying \u201cI went through hell.\u201d Yocheved Lifshitz, a frail 85-year-old grandmother who was one of two hostages released by <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Hostage release an \u2018amazing thing\u2019<\/h2>\n
Abducted from home <\/h2>\n
Remaining hostages<\/h2>\n