Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was taken against her will by Hamas on October 7
She was a Hamas captive for two weeks, and was taken to tunnels under Gaza
She said she confronted Hamas’ leader over why he ordered the incursion
An elderly Israeli hostage who was kept in Gaza’s underground tunnels for two weeks claims Hamas’s leader stayed silent when she confronted him about acting violently against civilians.
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was taken against her will from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ incursion into Israel on October 7.
She said while she was a captive, she met Yahya Sinwar and confronted him as to why he had ordered his troops to attack civilian settlements across Israel.
‘Sinwar was with us three to four days after we arrived,’ Lifshitz told the Davar newspaper.
‘I asked him how he is not ashamed to do such a thing to people who all these years have supported peace. He didn’t answer. He was silent.’
Yocheved was one of four women freed early on in the bloodiest between Hamas and Israel in decades.
Video of her shaking the hand of a masked captor and saying ‘shalom’, the Hebrew word for peace, made headlines across the world.
When asked why she did this upon her release, she simply said: ‘They treated us gently and met all our needs.’
Despite her treatment, she admitted she ‘went through hell’ during her two week stint as a hostage.
On top of this, her husband, 83-year-old Oded, remains in captivity, and the state of his wellbeing is currently unknown.
The 85-year-old’s comments come after reports that Sinwar also met other hostages shortly after their capture.
During the visit, Sinwar and his brother Mohammed, a senior figure in the group’s armed wing, told the hostages they would not be harmed and would be returned to Israel as part of an exchange deal.
A relative of a recently released hostage told Israeli broadcast media that Sinwar told the group in Hebrew: ‘Hello, I am Yahya Sinwar. You are the most protected here. Nothing will happen to you.’
Israel has compared Sinwar to Osama Bin Laden, and had promised that his days are numbered.
The 60-year-old political leader is the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and was designated a terrorist by the United States in 2015.
He has been arrested by Israel multiple times and spent 24 years in Israeli prisons, and was freed in 2011, as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Sinwar is being held responsible for the murder of 1,200 Israelis during Hamas’ incursion.
‘Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil,’ said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the IDF.
‘He is the mastermind behind this, like bin Laden was.
‘He built his career on murdering Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. That’s how he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis [in southern Gaza].’
Meanwhile, Hamas said today they are willing to extend a truce for four more days which would give them time to locate and free more Israeli hostages held by other terror groups.
If Israel agrees to this, Hamas ‘would be able to release Israeli prisoners that it, other resistance movements and other parties hold during this period, according to the terms of the truce,’ the source added.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told a Doha news conference on Tuesday that negotiators were seeking ‘a sustainable truce that will lead to further negotiations and eventually to an end… to this war.’
Peoplesmind