‘How are you not ashamed?’ Israeli grandmother asked Hamas leader

TEL AVIV – After Hamas gunmen stormed into 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz’s house and shot her husband in the hand, they threw her on a motorbike and dragged her off to a tunnel network beneath Gaza, her grandson Daniel said.

It was in the “very damp”, “very deep” warren of subterranean rooms and passages that his grandmother – now released – told family she encountered someone few Israelis have for years:

Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas

in Gaza, and a mastermind of

the Oct 7 attacks.

“She said she saw him, and told him: ‘How are you not ashamed? How are they not ashamed to do such things to people who fought for peace their entire lives?’” Daniel told AFP in Tel Aviv.

“And she said he stayed quiet.”

AFP was unable to independently verify Mr Lifshitz’s account of his grandmother’s meeting with one of Israel’s most wanted men.

Hamas officials declined to comment when asked to confirm whether such a meeting had taken place.

Known for his secrecy and his commitment to armed struggle, Sinwar learnt near-perfect Hebrew during years in Israeli prisons.

He was a founding member of Hamas, was a commander in its armed wing, and once led efforts to flush out and mercilessly punish Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

He was elected Hamas’ leader in Gaza in 2017.

Mrs Lifshitz was released in late October, along with another elderly woman hostage, but her husband Oded, 83, remains in captivity.

Hamas said the two women were freed for humanitarian reasons, and Mrs Lifshitz said their captors had been “courteous” and “treated us well”, organising doctors’ visits every few days.

But Daniel said on Nov 30 that his grandmother had been at risk of death.

“She got a stomach infection there, she lost almost 10kg; she would have died if she had stayed there,” he said.

After

the collapse on Dec 1 of a truce underpinning a hostage-prisoner exchange

deal, and the resumption of fierce fighting in Gaza, it is unclear when the hostage releases might resume.

Meanwhile, Mrs Lifshitz has not seen her husband since she was taken away on Oct 7, Daniel said.

“The last glance of my grandmother towards him was while she was on the motorcycle,” he said.

“That was the gaze, after 63 years of marriage.” AFP