Ex-captive Liri Albag: PM’s ‘brave decision’ on Iran must be followed by return of hostages

Speaking to a 2,000-odd crowd packed into Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Liri Albag, one of five soldiers released in the latest ceasefire with Hamas, says the war with Iran “proved to the world that we’re strong and we have the most powerful army in the world,” but laments how it took attention away from the 50 remaining captives.

“The [past] two weeks, all the headlines were about Iran. My brothers and sisters were pushed aside,” she says.

“Fifty souls, 50 worlds, and it’s time to bring them back,” says Albag. “It’s time for a deal.”

She describes an occasion when her captors disguised her with traditional Palestinian garb and marched her underground, where she was locked up in a cage with five other women and girls.

“We’re marching in the streets of Gaza for three hours in the tiring heat, wrapped in strange hijabs and galabiyas. Finally, we’re led to the yard of a ground-floor home. Next to the door is a tall, armed masked man,” she says.

“We pass through holes in the walls, from one home to another, until we reach a peculiar structure, something between an empty mosque and an abandoned library,” she says.

There, she says, she saw a large butcher knife lying on a chair: “My heart stopped.”

“The terrorist takes the knife and says: ‘You’ve seen Gaza from above, now you’re going to see Gaza’s underground,'” says Albag, adding that she and her friends were ushered in through a hole in the ground covered by a carpet.

They were taken through a narrow tunnel to a cage roughly 2×2 meters in area and 1.6 meters high, where they were fed “a quarter of a pita, a date and half a bowl of rice a day.” There was a hole in the floor some 800 meters away for them to use as a toilet, says Albag.

“Every second there is an eternity,” she says. “This is the reality of the hostages… they’re counting not just days but also water bottles, quarters of pita and holes in the wall.”

Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, she says: “You made a brave decision on Iran. Now make a brave decision that ends the fighting in Gaza and brings back everyone… because that’s our moral duty as a nation.”

This was the first Hostages Square rally in three weeks, with the previous two being canceled due to the threat of missiles from Iran. Instead of rallies, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum held online events featuring interviews with captives’ relatives.