Attacked online by PM’s backers, ex-hostage hits back: ‘Wish death upon Hamas, not me’
Liri Albag, who spent 15 months in Hamas captivity, decries ‘heartless, inhuman’ comments after she placed blame on Netanyahu for Oct. 7; he phones her, voices solidarity
Freed hostage Liri Albag responded Wednesday to the “despicable, heartless, inhuman” online invective she was subjected to after she criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught earlier this week.
“I’m reading the threats and curses I received, and I’m afraid. I’m not afraid of the responses themselves… I am afraid of what we’ve become,” Albag wrote on Instagram after receiving a torrent of hateful comments by pro-Netanyahu social media users.
“Wishing someone would be in captivity??? I wouldn’t wish that upon my haters. Make fun of my weight? Reminds me of the terrorists [captors] who shouted at me and made sure to remind me daily that I’m fat. To promise death and revenge??? Wish this upon Hamas and our enemies, not me.”
Albag continued: “And why all this? Because I said the prime minister is responsible for the failure [of October 7]…. And yes, all the security leadership is to blame, don’t worry. I told them this in my meetings with them!!! And of course, foremost to blame for the country’s nightmare is Hamas. I don’t forget this terror group for a moment, and I personally want revenge against it. Hamas is the enemy!!!!!!”
“You know what is the most difficult? That this [societal] rift is worse than our enemies. We can’t win like this!!” she added. “As the Jewish nation that has been attacked time after time, since Egypt [in the Bible] until today, let’s fight our enemies and not one another. You will never understand what we went through there and I don’t wish for you to understand!”
Albag, along with Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Agam Berger, was kidnapped from the IDF’s Nahal Oz military base on October 7, 2023, and released by the terror group in February in a hostage-ceasefire deal that has since collapsed. Like many freed hostages, she has described the appalling conditions in which she was held captive. Albag lost 10 kilograms in weight while held hostage.
Later Wednesday night, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister had spoken with Albag and her parents, Shira and Eli, and expressed “solidarity with Liri in light of the attacks she has faced on social media in recent days.”
Netanyahu offered Albag words of support over the phone, and “expressed admiration for her resilience and bravery while in Hamas captivity,” said the Prime Minister’s Office in a statement.
The premier told Albag that he and his wife Sara Netanyahu had maintained regular contact with the Albag family, that he is committed to securing the return of all hostages, and “that he would like to meet soon” with Albag and “the fellow [IDF] observer soldiers who returned with her.”
Liri thanked the prime minister for “the emotional conversation, for his courageous decision to secure her release and that of other hostages, and urged him to continue efforts to bring everyone home,” the PMO added in its readout of the conversation.
Earlier this week, the Kan public broadcaster published and then removed a promotional clip of an upcoming interview with Albag, in which she sharply criticized Netanyahu, after Albag requested it be taken off the air due to the wave of hate she had received.
In the clip, Albag tells the interviewer that if she were to meet Netanyahu, she would tell him that she blames him for the failures surrounding the October 7 Hamas attack, when the Palestinian terror group led over 5,000 attackers to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting a total of 251 hostages.
Albag also said that she expects Netanyahu to “ask for forgiveness and promise that the rest of the hostages will be home soon.”
After clips of the interview were posted online and aired on Kan, a wave of hate and vitriol targeted Albag online, with pro-Netanyahu accounts calling her “a trash girl” and suggesting to “send her back to Gaza.”
According to Channel 12, a large number of the hateful messages came from pro-Netanyahu Facebook groups, especially “Friends who love Benjamin Netanyahu,” a group with over 90,000 members.
Some accounts accused Albag of receiving money to bad-mouth the premier, and others accused her of seeking publicity, wading into politics and exhibiting arrogance.
Albag’s family then requested that Kan pull the clip from their social media accounts, which the broadcaster quickly honored.
Netanyahu has largely shirked responsibility for the devastating Hamas attack, seeking to place the blame solely on security chiefs who he says insisted that the terror group was deterred and blasting them for failing to wake him in the early hours of October 7 when troubling signs began appearing from Gaza, claiming he would have immediately instructed them to go on high alert.
Critics argue that Netanyahu, as Israel’s leader for some 15 of the past 16 years, is ultimately responsible after taking pride in his years-long policies vis-a-vis Gaza and in his refusal to open an all-out war there. They accuse him of enabling Hamas in Gaza as he saw it as useful in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and of downplaying multiple warnings from security chiefs in the months ahead of the attack that Israel’s enemies were emboldened by the internal division created by his government’s legislative initiatives.
The Times of Israel Community.