TEL AVIV: A Zionist 85-year-old freed by Palestinian group Hamas said Tuesday she was treated well during more than two weeks held captive in Gaza. Yocheved Lifshitz was a resident of Nir Oz kibbutz, one of the Zionist communities near the Gaza Strip which Hamas militants attacked on Oct 7.

“They treated us well,” she told reporters at a Tel Aviv hospital, explaining a doctor visited her and fellow captives every two to three days and provided medicines. Her husband, also in his 80s, is among more than 200 captives still being held in Gaza. “They treated us gently, and provided all our needs,” she said, when asked why she reached out to shake the hand of a militant the moment she was freed.

Lifshitz described her captors as “very friendly” and “very courteous” people who held her with four other captives. “They seemed ready for this, they prepared for a long time, they had everything that men and women needed, including shampoo,” she told journalists. “We ate the same food they did — pitas with cream cheese, melted cheese, cucumbers. That was a meal for an entire day,” said Lifshitz. The octogenarian was released along with fellow Nir Oz resident Nurit Cooper, 79, three days after an American woman and her daughter were freed. — AFP