An elderly Israeli peace advocate released from Hamas custody late last month said he met the terror group’s leader during his ordeal – and asked him “how he is not ashamed.”
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar visited the hostages in the first days of their captivity in Gaza.
“Sinwar is with the three of us [or] four days after we got there,” Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, told the Davar newspaper at a Tuesday afternoon rally outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, the Times of Israel reported.
“I asked him how he is not ashamed, doing such a thing to a person who for years supported peace? He didn’t answer. He is quiet,” he claimed.
Lifshitz and her husband, Oded, 83, were abducted from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz – which they helped found in the 1950s – during Hamas’ October 7 surprise attack on southern Israel.
Lifshitz and her neighbor, Nurit Cooper, 79, were released on Oct. 23.
Yocheved Lifshitz was released by Hamas on Oct. 23. AP
However, Oded is still believed to be a hostage in the Gaza Strip.
When he first returned to Israel after nearly a month in detention, Lifshitz told the news outlet that he had “been through hell.”
“They beat people,” he said at a news conference about the merciless terrorist invasion of Kibbutz NIr Oz and other border communities.
Yahya Sinwar, 61, has been the leader of Hamas since 2017. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
“They don’t care about kidnapping [the] elderly and children. It was very painful,” he added.
While he is still recovering from the abduction, Lifshitz – a longtime peace advocate who has helped Palestinians receive medical treatment in Israel in the past – was stern at a rally Tuesday afternoon.
“I am here to protest. To bring my Oded home. We will continue to protest until all hostages return,” he told Davar.
Lifshitz is a longtime peace advocate. AP
Sinwar, 61, remains Israel’s most wanted man nearly two months after the October 7 massacre.
Lifshitz’s recollection of his face-to-face with the leader who Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed “the walking dead” follows similar reports that Sinwar met with another kidnap victim from Nir Oz in the days after the attack, the Guardian added.
“Hello, I’m Yahya Sinwar. You are the most protected here. Nothing will happen to you,” Sinwar allegedly told the victim, according to a relative of a recently freed hostage who spoke to Israel’s Channel 12 news.
Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. AP
Sinwar learned Hebrew while serving a 22-year prison sentence for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians in 1989, the Guardian reported.
He was released in 2011 as part of a controversial exchange deal to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and was designated a terrorist by the US in 2015.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
