An elderly Israeli hostage who was released by Hamas overnight said she was beaten by militants as she was taken into Gaza on Oct. 7, as her husband’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was freed late Monday along with 79-year-old Nurit Cooper, leaving around 220 hostages still in the hands of Hamas.
She was the first of four released hostages so far to speak publicly.
Seated in a wheelchair, a frail looking Lifshitz told reporters that she was beaten by her captors and taken on motorcycle into Gaza. There, they walked for a couple of kilometres in what Lifshitz described as a “spider web” of underground tunnels.
“I’ve been through hell,” she said, assisted by her daughter, who translated her remarks from Hebrew to English.
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Featured VideoRutie Mizrahi, the niece of Yocheved Lifshitz, says she’s happy and relieved that her aunt was freed by Hamas, but she is still thinking of others who are being held hostage — including her uncle, Oded Lifshitz, who she hopes will be released soon.
Lifshitz and her 83-year old husband, Oded, were kidnapped from their home at the Nir Oz kibbutz, close to the border with Gaza in southern Israel, the Israeli prime minister’s office said Monday. Oded remained captive, it added.
Lifshitz said while in Gaza she was visited by a doctor and that her needs were taken care of.
Rutie Mizrahi, Lifshitz’s niece from Vancouver, told CBC News she was “very happy and relieved to see her back,” but that there’s mixed emotions given the number of hostages who remain unaccounted for. That list includes her uncle as well as Cooper’s husband, Amiram.
Hamas and other militants in Gaza are believed to have taken roughly 220 people, including an unconfirmed number of foreigners and dual citizens. More than 1,400 have been killed in Israel since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, including several Canadians.
Daniel Lifshitz, the couple’s grandson, told Reuters the couple helped sick Palestinians in Gaza get to hospital for years.
“For more than a decade, they took … sick Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, not from the West Bank, from the Gaza Strip every week from the Erez border to the hospitals in Israel to get treatment for their disease, for cancer, for anything,” he added.
‘Hamas tyranny’ will end: Netanyahu
Meanwhile, Israel’s military intensified its assault on Hamas militants in Gaza, as the United States and other global powers called for aid to continue flowing into the besieged strip to prevent a grave humanitarian crisis from worsening.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday while at a joint news conference with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron that Israel’s military will destroy Hamas during the on-going war in the Gaza Strip, adding that after the conflict no one would live “under Hamas tyranny.”
Israel’s military said it had hit more than 400 militant targets in Gaza overnight and killed dozens of Hamas fighters, including three deputy battalion commanders. The military said that among the targets hit was a tunnel that allowed Hamas to infiltrate Israel from the sea.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Israeli Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi said earlier that troops were “well prepared for the ground operations in the south.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 120 Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes that targeted inhabited homes in different areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian health ministry said the Gaza death toll had topped 5,000 in two weeks of Israeli airstrikes in response to the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Front Burner24:32Aid trickles into Gaza, as Israel ramps up airstrikes
Featured VideoThis weekend, a limited number of aid trucks finally began moving through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, toward Gaza. Resources are critically low in the region. Today, the CBC’s Margaret Evans, who’s currently in East Jerusalem, on the status of aid there, escalating airstrikes in Gaza and the West Bank, and how tensions are growing in the region. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
UN Security Council to meet again
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday called for an unimpeded flow of aid into Gaza, with a representative saying what has been delivered so far is “just a trickle in the face of the immense needs of people on the street.”
Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, also said that fuel, which has not been sent to the Gaza Strip along with the humanitarian aid, was critical.
“Without fuel, the generators cannot produce electricity for hospitals, for bakeries and for the water desalination plant,” Alrifai said.
Featured VideoWith U.S. citizens among those being held by Hamas, the Biden administration has reportedly asked Israel to delay an anticipated ground offensive to allow more time to negotiate the release of hostages.
U.S. President Joe Biden late Monday welcomed the release of the hostages and underscored the need to sustain “a continuous flow” of humanitarian assistance into Gaza in a telephone call with Netanyahu, the White House said.
In public, the United States has stressed Israel’s right to defend itself but two sources familiar with the matter said the White House, Pentagon and State Department have stepped up private appeals for caution in conversations with the Israelis.
A U.S. priority is to gain time for negotiations to free other hostages, said the sources.
Asked about the possibility of a ceasefire, Biden said: “We should have those hostages released and then we can talk.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to attend a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Middle East on Tuesday, though it was unclear what action, if any, might be taken by the council, whose five veto-wielding powers appear divided.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has allowed China and Russia to burnish their credentials as the champions of the developing world, in contrast with the United States, which has squarely supported Israel. All three big powers hold Security Council vetoes.