Israel’s Next-to-Leading-Order Operation to Expel Hamas in Gaza: The Case of Ms. Lifshitz
The 85-year-old woman, who was freed after being held hostage by Palestinian extremists in Gaza for 17 days, on Tuesday described being beaten and taken away on a motorcycle.
Last week, Hamas released several hostages, including American-Israeli citizens Judith and Natalie Raanan. Ms. Lifshitz is the first released hostage to speak publicly about her ordeal.
“I went through hell,” Ms. Lifshitz told reporters the day after her release, sitting in a wheelchair at a hospital in Tel Aviv amid a thicket of microphones.
She was freed along with Nurit Cooper, 79, on Monday and transferred from Hamas custody to Israeli forces via the International Committee for the Red Cross and Egypt. Both of their husbands are still being held hostage in Gaza.
She gave a glimpse of the difficulties that Israel faces as it wrestles with whether or not to launch a ground invasion of Gaza to eradicate Hamas, which lead to the devastating October 7 attack against Israel.
Military analysts said that Hamas has built a labyrinth of underground passages for fighters in Gaza, making it difficult for Israel’s anticipated ground operation and to rescue the hostages.
The attack by Hamas on Israel’s border communities shocked and traumatized by the traumatizing experience of the 1967 Gazan Independence Day
“Many people stormed our homes, they beat people, some of them they abducted, like me,” Ms. Lifshitz said. It didn’t make a difference, they took the elderly and young.
She said her kidnappers dragged her onto a bike and beat her severely in the ribs, making it difficult for her to breathe, and took her watch. They drove off through the fields surrounding Nir Oz.
They took her through the network of tunnels until they reached a large hall where about 25 people were, she said. After about two to three hours, they separated five people from her kibbutz into their own room, where they were overseen by guards and a medic, she said.
Ms. Lifshitz said that she and others were relatively well taken care of, given medicine and the same food as their captors. She said that her captors worked to make sure the area was free of disease by continuously checking on her. She said that they treated them well and fulfilled most of their needs.
The attack by Hamas on the Israel’s border communities shocked and traumatized the country. There had been brief battles with the Palestinians in Gaza in the past, but nothing like the scale of the assault that took place.
Ms. Lifshitz at times criticized the Israeli military, saying that it and the Shin Bet domestic security service had ignored warning signs of the threat to towns near Gaza. The Israeli military’s chief of staff acknowledged after the attack that the military had failed to live up to its mission to protect Israel’s citizens.
Weeks before the assault, Palestinians had rioted and fired explosive balloons near the Gaza border fence, sparking fires in southern Israel, Ms. Lifshitz said.
Israeli Survivors: Solace in a Hotel in the Hamas-Attack Near the Tel Aviv Border? An Israeli Geologist’s Perspective
Families lounge on green lawns. The kids are playing basketball. Dogs are taken on walks through the hotel lobby past a handwritten roster of funerals that keeps getting longer.
These are the displaced residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. One of the hardest hit communities was along the Gaza border where hundreds of Israelis were killed in the Hamas attacks.
The survivors of Kibbutz Kfar Aza have evacuated, with hundreds of them staying together at this hotel on another kibbutz north of Tel Aviv, wondering: what next?
Geologist Bar Elisha sits on a lawn chair in the hotel courtyard. The man and his two young daughters were home at the time of the ambush. He left his house to get his firearm, but it wouldn’t let him in.
Israel survivors found solace in a hotel in the Hamas attack at home, according to a Schwartzman survivor’s wife
I was sad to hear that he was dead. His whole family’s dead. They were murdered in cold blood, that was what I was sure of. He said that he heard them move to the next house.
The scene he emerged from after being rescued by soldiers was devastating. Homes had gaping holes. The attackers left behind an aerial photograph with buildings identified as targets. Some of the details haunt the survivors.
“When we moved there, we thought it was safe,” says Schwartzman, who is 37. “Yeah, there was constant bombing and everything, but we never thought that dozens or even hundreds of terrorists will infiltrate the kibbutz and will start slaughtering entire families in their home, in their beds.”
Schwartzman’s wife, Keren Flash, lost both of her parents in the attack — they were killed in their home less than 500 feet away from Schwartzman’s home.
Source: Attacked by Hamas at home, Israeli survivors find solace in a hotel
Hamas at home, Israeli survivors find solace in a hotel: A touching memory of the Holocaust for a Jewish boy who couldn’t sleep at home
Shiva, the Jewish ritual of mourning at home, cannot be done at home. Their home is now uninhabitable. There is a lobby at the hotel where Shiva is being held.
Ofer Baram is surrounded by friends and family, sitting shiva for his son Aviv, who was a stage manager for popular artists.
A therapist holding sessions in an office of the bank. She helped treat a man who was not sure where his father’s body was.
He thought of his body as a bag with many other bodies. Shmuel says, explaining that, for him, it brought to mind scenes from the Holocaust. It was just a very bad image, like the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Shmuel, who is 48, specializes in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a type of therapy that uses eye movements, knee tapping and guided imagery to overcome trauma.
“He said goodbye and then he ran away,” the father said. I love you,’” says Shmuel. He could say farewell to his dad in a dignified and normal way, no matter how old he was. And then he got peace.”
Source: Attacked by Hamas at home, Israeli survivors find solace in a hotel
The spirit of peace and charity at the Shefayim Hotel, Bethe Podolski, Israel, April 15-2022
Other attack survivors at the Shefayim Hotel find peace in being among their fellow community members, and those who are volunteering their time to support them.
“The human spirit here is so strong,” says Schwartzman. “You see the civilians here that are taking care of everything, everything, everything that you need.”