British relatives of hostages being held in Gaza call on the world to ‘bring them home’ after Briton’s elderly mother is released by Hamas

A frail grandmother has become an overnight symbol of bravery after her release by Hamas.

Yocheved Lifshitz had shaken hands with one of her 6ft masked and gun-toting captors and looked him in the eye before saying ‘shalom’, the Hebrew word for peace.

The 85-year-old later said she had been ‘treated very nicely’ by the terrorists who held her for 16 days.

She and her fellow hostages were given shampoo and conditioner, pitta bread and cucumber and daily visits from a doctor to check on their health. The toilets in their Hamas jail were meticulously scrubbed by guards who were ‘very concerned about hygiene’.

And so when she and another elderly Israeli were freed on Monday night, Mrs Lifshitz did what polite elderly ladies do and offered her thanks.

The world could only marvel at her magnanimity as Hamas handed her over to Red Cross medics. Sharone Lifshitz, her British daughter, said simply: ‘It’s just … so her.’ Sharone, 52, from London, said: ‘I’m so proud of her. She’s amazing. Just the way she walked off, and then came back and said “Thank you” was quite incredible to me.’

This is the first time since the massacres and mass kidnappings in Israel on October 7 that we have had any insight into what became of the 200 or so hostages, including up to five Britons. In the most appalling circumstances, they were snatched by marauding Hamas gunmen, and some were seen on video begging for their lives as they were taken to Gaza on motorbikes and pick-up trucks.

Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, shaking hands with a member of Hamas as she is released to the Red Cross in an unknown location

Yocheved Lifschitz (R), 85, speaks with the media next to her daughter Sharone Lifschitz (L) at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center – Ichilov in Tel Aviv

Since then, their fate has looked bleak as vengeful Israel began bombing the enclave to bits, vowing to annihilate ‘every single’ Hamas terrorist. Intense efforts by diplomats, spies and SAS-style military squads to free the abductees have been going on behind the scenes for over two weeks.

But anguished families have been given little idea if their loved ones are even alive.

That changed yesterday in a jaw-dropping press conference in Tel Aviv given by Mrs Lifshitz, who gave the world some answers at last. In front of over a hundred journalists hanging on her every word, Mrs Lifshitz, sitting in a wheelchair but speaking in a determined voice, described her ordeal.

I watched as her daughter, who flew in from London and was at her side throughout, held her hand and helped to interpret her mother’s extraordinary account in Hebrew to the world’s press.

At one point, in a revelation that will lift hearts among the families of other hostages, she said she had seen 25 other abductees in a hall.

Mrs Lifshitz is one of the 100 villagers taken from Nir Oz, one of the closest kibbutz communities to the Gaza border, and where one in four of the tight-knit population were kidnapped, including children and the elderly. She recalled: ‘They stormed into our homes. They beat people. They kidnapped others, the old and the young, without distinction.’

The octogenarian said that as she was carted away to Gaza on a motorbike, ‘the young men hit me on the way – they didn’t break my ribs but it was painful and I had difficulty breathing’.

Sharone said her elderly mother had suffered from bruises and shortness of breath following her beating. And her mother said: ‘When I was on the bike, my legs were on one side and the rest of my body on the other side.’

She was driven over a patch of ploughed fields that stands between her village and the supposedly impregnable fence about a mile away that separates Israel from Gaza. She was ‘hit with sticks’ until they reached tunnels, and then they walked for ‘a few kilometres on wet ground’.

Yocheved was released by the militant group on Monday evening

Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz, who were taken by Hamas on October 7 and released earlier this evening, arrive via helicopter at Ichilov hospital

Translating her mother’s account, Sharone said: ‘There are a huge network of tunnels underneath – it looked like a spider’s web.’

Hamas boasted in 2011 it had constructed a tunnel network totalling more than 300 miles. Thirteen years ago, I was shown one of these tunnels during a trip to Gaza. It was an engineering marvel lined with strings of fairy lights.

The people of Gaza – blockaded from the world for years – use them to smuggle everything from food and everyday goods to weapons. They are also a military nightmare for the Israeli soldiers.

There have been fears that the 200 hostages are being held by Hamas as ‘human shields’ in the tunnel system. Mrs Lifshitz certainly appears to have seen the tunnels. On her account, which will be pored over by security officials for clues as to the whereabouts of the other hostages, she was first taken to Abasan al-Kabira and then Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

After that, she does not know where she was kept. During her ordeal, her captors told hostages ‘they were Muslims and that they are not going to hurt them’, her daughter said.

But unsurprisingly for an 85-year-old woman beaten and dragged away by Israel’s most savage enemies, she admitted: ‘I went through hell.’

READ MORE: Israeli woman, 85, who wished ‘peace’ on her Hamas captors reveals the degrading abuse they inflicted on her that left her struggling to breathe… but could not strip her of her love for fellow man

Which makes the remainder of her story all the more remarkable. For Mrs Lifshitz told yesterday how her Hamas captors, despite being number-one targets for Israeli assassination squads, treated her and others with something akin to compassion.

When asked at the press conference why she had shaken a Hamas terrorist’s hand, she replied: ‘Because they treated us very nicely.’ It is not obvious that everyone would agree with that, especially given the brutal beating she suffered. But through her daughter yesterday, she said that during her 16 days as a prisoner, her captors ‘took care of all the women’s needs – shampoo, conditioner.’

Her daughter said: ‘When they arrived, they arrived to a large hall where about 25 hostages were gathered. After two or three hours, five of them were taken into a separate room. She said they were very friendly towards them, they took care of them, they were given medicine.’

Her mother, who was freed with Nurit Cooper, 79, added: ‘They took care of us. They made sure we could be clean, and eat, they gave us pitta bread, cucumber, hard cheese and low fat cream cheese, and that was our food for the entire day.’

She described how each prisoner was assigned their own guard, and they would talk and eat with them every day. On top of this, a doctor examined the hostages daily and gave them with any necessary medication. Sharone, speaking for her mother, said the terrorists were particularly anxious about cleanliness, saying: ‘They were very concerned with hygiene, and were worried about an outbreak of something. We had toilets which they cleaned every day.’ It is doubtful the general population of Gaza have enjoyed such attention. Indeed, according to Gaza officials, during Israeli’s relentless air strikes, more than 5,700 residents have been killed, including 704 in the past day. And more than 2,300 children have died, they claim.

Mrs Lifshitz has been so gracious about her treatment by Hamas. For one thing, they are still holding her husband, Oded, 83, and dozens of her friends from Nir Oz.

Sharone also said her mother had been bitterly disappointed with Israel’s woeful lack of preparedness for the October 7 atrocity, despite the vast cost of the fence supposedly protecting their village from the terror group.

Source: Read Full Article