It is extraordinary to have someone captured by Hamas held in their vast network of tunnels but ultimately Live to Tell the tale and 85-year-old y lifshitz’s story is extraordinary so how did she survive and why was she released Kibuts near Oz is a lush Oasis its Gardens blooming but now it’s also a killing field lifshits is from near o that’s a small kibuts a community of around 400 people very close to Gaza so close in fact that over the years it has been attacked by Hamas snipers firing
From within Gaza it was so dangerous that potato Farmers many years ago were told to harvest their crops at night but none of that would compare to what was about to happen it began Saturday morning with a massive rocket barrage from Gaza striking across Israel Hamas attacked on multiple fronts Rockets
Bulldozers and thousands of Fighters pouring into to more than 20 Israeli border communities Nas was one of those communities and yev lifshitz saw the gunmen coming my mom is telling the horrific stories she’s saying that many many people a swarm of people came through defense the defense cost 2 and a
Half billion shekels and it didn’t help even a little bit their kabut n o was attacked homes torched and stripped of Life 400 residents terrorized 100 killed or missing it’s estimated a quarter of near O’s population was killed that day this is what it looks like now hollowed
Out covered in Ash and Rubble there safe rooms no match for the attackers they burn the houses so people would come out of these sheltered rooms and they could or suffocate to death or they would just sh shoot them coming out lifshits survived but was captured you know we
Saw a video from that day of how Hamas transported its hostages sometimes stuffed into the back of a vehicle driven in golf carts or or jammed between two attackers on a motorbike that is how lifshits was taken away too my mom is saying that she was taken on
The back of a motor bite with her body uh with her legs on one side and a head on another side imagine that the body of an 85-year-old draped across the seat of a speeding bike she says her body was badly bruised from the trip and that her
Attackers at one point hit her before stealing her values they took off the watch and the jewelry as she was driving the trip back to Gaza might only have taken minutes based on the relatively short distance there was to drive maybe 10 20 kilm depending on where in Gaza
They were going we have no way of knowing but we do know the ordeal above ground was just the beginning most of what LIF shits had to endure happened Underground they reached the tunnels there they walked for a few kilometers on the wet ground there are a
Huge um huge um network of tunnels underneath it looks like a spider web Hamas claims its tunnel Network stretches hundreds of kilometers lifshitz describes being escorted from that Maze of tunnels into a larger room with around 25 other hostages then they were separated into smaller groups those
Hostages five of them she among them were taken into a separate room and LIF [ __ ] says she was told she wouldn’t be harmed when they told them that they are Muslims and they’re not going to hurt them now it was not long after this point the world started piecing together
What some of these hostages were going through some of it was caught on video and uploaded horrific scenes where victims were paraded spat upon and where it wasn’t even always clear who was alive and who was already dead Hamas also pushed its own version of events videos showing hostages were safe and
Sound being given water being treated for their wounds so they’re trying to convey this notion that they’re treating these hostages well well the reality is they violated every rule of armed conflict you cannot take civilians postes indeed Hamas medical personnel treating wounds that were either directly or indirectly caused by Hamas
Abductors seems to be a common threat one of the men with them um had badly injured from for from a motorbike accident on the way and the paramedic was looking after his wounds it was given uh um medicine and antibiotics in this video prepared and released by
Hamas we see two Israeli hostages freed for her part liit says she was well treated that a doctor would visit every couple of days she says she was given medicine slept on a mattress the toilet she used was kept clean and that her captors were friendly that they even
Shared the same food my mom said that she was treated well and that the people people were kind to her I should mention a sad but important part of this story livshitz had to leave her husband behind in those tunnels in Gaza nobody knows whether he’s healthy how he’s being
Treated or how he will be treated in the future lifshits will almost certainly be considering his safety even after her own release maybe especially after after her own Release 17 days after her capture it’s not clear why lifshitz in particular was released along with another hostage 79-year-old nit Cooper they are both elderly having them fall ill or die would risk enraging Israel and releasing them well Hamas says it does this for humanitarian reasons even as Israel has
From the start disputed that Humanity in our war against The Barbarians of Kamas lifshitz’s final interaction with her captors a handshake and twice she says shalom in Hebrew that can be a farewell it also means peace a remarkable gesture given how Grim the context my mom is very much
Hoping that all the people that were with her will come back and the story is not over till everybody come back and we can start um building again something for lifshits there is no home to go back to her daughter says it was burned down and there may be more than 200 additional
Hostages in Hamas custody right Now oh
Hamas has released two Israeli women held hostage in Gaza. Andrew Chang recounts the story of Yocheved Lifshitz, 85. How did she survive, and why was she released?
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