Liri Albag recalls Gaza ‘hell,’ pain of knowing those against hostage deal would ‘sacrifice’ her

Former hostage Liri Albag gave her first interview since being released from Gaza in January, recounting her capture at the hands of Hamas terrorists alongside other female surveillance soldiers, the “hell” of Gaza and the hurt she felt by those in Israel willing to “sacrifice” her by opposing a deal.

“The truth is that October 7 feels like one long nightmare, and I’ve been waiting for someone to wake me up, for someone to tell me I was dreaming. But that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, this has all been real,” she told Channel 12 in an hour-long interview broadcast on Friday.

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 last month in the first phase of the hostage-ceasefire deal.

Hamas terrorists killed another 15 surveillance soldiers during their attack on the base. They also took two additional hostages: Ori Megidish, who was rescued, and Noa Marciano, who was murdered in captivity, and her body was recovered.

Albag had finished her training as a surveillance soldier only two days before her kidnapping and had just arrived at the Nahal Oz base. She said she was not provided a weapon and had no way of defending herself against the incoming terrorists.

Recalling when she first saw her captors, Albag said, “You see evil and hatred in their eyes.”

“I was sure that the moment we stood there tied up, they were going to slaughter us — shoot us one by one,” Albag said. “I went into survival mode, I said: ‘OK, what can I do to make it out alive?'”

She described Gaza as “really hell,” and said her captors forced her and the hostages with her to watch videos of the October 7 massacre, including an infamous clip in which the surveillance soldiers, including Liri, are seen soon after their capture while still on their base.

“They told us, ‘If you listen to us, we won’t kill you. You’re coming with us to Gaza.’ And we told them, ‘Yes, take us to Gaza’ because we were simply afraid,” she said. “I think it was totally instinctual.”

Albag said she understood she was being taken into Gaza upon seeing the car she was in pass by the gate on the border between Israel and the coastal enclave. “[We saw] the Gazan masses surrounding us, standing on the sides, clapping, whistling, dancing… [The Gazans] ran after us, happy, firing in the air. Children, women, old people.”

The experience led Albag to conclude that there are no ‘innocent bystanders’ in Gaza, she said.

Conditions in captivity

“Sometimes they only let us use the restroom twice a day, in the morning and evening. There is no hygiene there… I still haven’t been able to remove from myself the ‘filth’ of Gaza.”

In terms of diet, Albag said she ate mainly pita bread, rice, and, when available, pasta, adding that hunger was felt at different times.

“When humanitarian aid wasn’t let in, it was felt. It was really felt because you suddenly go down to days of a single pita, there were days of a quarter [pita]… There were days we would talk about food to overcome the hunger… There were days… that we would drink salt water because there was no water. I lost 10 kilograms there.”

On her relationship with her captors, Albag said she pretended to get along with them because they were in control.

“There were a lot of things there that crossed our boundaries. There were a lot of things that we would impose a boundary over,” she said, specifying that she refused to let her captors enter her room while she was sleeping.

“At the end of the day, [the captor] needs me to tell those above him that he’s okay. So, we would play on that. ‘You’re acting like this toward me? Okay, bring over your superior. I want to speak to him.'”

Albag explained her behavior, “From the beginning, I knew that they needed us more than we thought.”

Albag said there was “verbal violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse. [They would tell us] ‘You’re not going home.'”

Albag also said the captors tried to impose their way of life on the women. “They tried to tame us into their culture, where women can’t laugh out loud, can’t sit [with legs crossed].”

Albag’s interactions with Gazan women were not much better than those with men.

The hardest thing for Albag in her interactions with her captors was the hate, she said. “They look at us like we’re a terrorist organization, like how we look at them. That’s how they see us: terrorists, murderers, thieves, liars. We had conversations with them about the Holocaust. They deny the Holocaust. They think Hitler was a genius… that Hitler didn’t do that, that Hitler was alright.”

Albag said there were also political discussions with the captors, but she would not participate. “That’s [Agam Berger’s] thing… I would tell them, ‘I don’t understand politics, leave me alone, I don’t have answers to give you.'” Their captors called Arab Israelis “‘traitors,'” she said.

Other hostages

Albag also discussed her relationship with the other hostages she spent time with. She said Keith and Aviva Siegel, who were also released — Aviva in November 2023 and Keith last month — were like parents to her.

After she was separated from them, she spent time with young children held hostage, who were set free during the first truce, a period she said was the most enjoyable during her captivity.

When asked about a story that she convinced her captors that fellow hostage Amit Soussana was not a soldier, which Soussana has said saved her life, Albag was modest, saying: “I did what I did to save those around me… I felt that once they hurt one of the Israelis, one of the hostages, they were hurting me. And I couldn’t watch that.”

Albag spent almost the entirety of her captivity with Berger, from whom she was separated a day before her release. Albag tried to scuttle her planned release because Berger was not being let go with her, insisting that she stay in Gaza with her friend. Eventually, Albag’s captors tricked her into getting into the vehicle that took her to be freed, and Berger was released several days later.

Albag had not seen the other three surveillance soldiers for over a year until the day they were set free.

Albag recalled being told she would be released during the first hostage deal in 2023 but understood she was staying in captivity when she heard an explosion one morning.

“That explained to us that that’s it. There are no negotiations, no deal, we aren’t going home.” She said she understood she would be in captivity for an especially long time because she was a soldier.

Albag told hostages, who were released during the first deal, to tell her sister not to touch her shoes: “That way she knows that I stayed myself.”

Albag divulged that her captors provided her with a siddur prayer book left behind by Israeli soldiers and that the hostages would read from it and try to observe Jewish holidays.

To keep their spirits up, Albag said the hostages would sing, celebrate birthdays, and keep diaries, which the captors did not let them take back with them. “We tried to remain sane there.”

On the political strife in Israel surrounding a hostage deal, Albag said the hostages had a radio and were aware of the debate on whether to release them in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of terrorists.

“It was very difficult for us to think that there are people who are really ready to sacrifice us,” she said. “Why? What did I do? I’m responsible for getting kidnapped?”