Former hostage Liri Albag described her release from her time in Hamas captivity as "being reborn" in an interview with N12 released on Friday night.
"The truth is that on October 7, I felt like I was in one long nightmare, waiting for someone to wake me up," she said in sections of the interview released on Tuesday. "[I waited] for someone to tell me, 'You were dreaming, it didn't happen. It's just a dream.' But unfortunately, it did happen."
N12 released part of its exclusive interview with Albag on Wednesday; her full testimony of her time in the Gaza Strip was released on Ulpan Shishi on Friday night. Albag's parents sat beside her in the interview at their home.
Albag describes her captivity in the Gaza Strip as "hell" and says that she hasn't been able to sleep properly until very recently. She also told N12 of how her captors would sleep close to her in the same room.
"I didn't like it when a person touched my leg when I was sleeping, just because he was sleeping in front of me - it was extremely uncomfortable."
This is the first interview Albag has given after her release, in which she talks about her 477 days in captivity. She was kidnapped with fellow IDF observers Daniela Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, and Agam Berger, and she and the others were released on January 25 (except for Berger, who was released five days later) in the first phase of the hostage deal with Hamas.
Albag's October 7 experience
Albag also said in the interview that she had only arrived at the Nahal Oz base for the first time on October 5, two days before the Hamas attacks. She also credits IDF Capt. Eden Nimri for saving her life during the attacks; Nimri was killed by Hamas during a shootout with the terrorists. Her family said that she had calmed the soldiers at the base and instructed them to put bullets in their guns and arranged firing directions.
She described the moments at the base with at first a lot of screaming and shouting, while hearing a lot of gunshots, but then she later quieted down with other observers so that Hamas terrorists would pinpoint their location.
Her parents were also not informed of all the details as she was texting them on October 7, which Albag said was because she didn't want to stress them. Her father, Eli, told N12 that the last text he received from his daughter that morning was at 7:44 a.m., where she said "Dad, they shot me and I'm fine." She also said that when the Hamas terrorists found her and the other observers, she tried to communicate with them in English, as the terrorists didn't speak Hebrew, the N12 exclusive report said.
Last May, a three-minute video depicting Albag and the other four IDF observers was released, which showed them handcuffed and with blood on their face. The video was taken from Hamas terrorists' body cameras.
The released hostage then went into detail of when she was driven into the Gaza Strip as well as the tenure of her captivity. She described how when she was driven into the enclave, a Gazan crowd surrounded her and stood on the sides, clapping, whistling, and dancing as she was brought into captivity. After that, she said her entire time in was spent moving between multiple apartments and tunnels.
"We didn't know what was going to happen in the next minute, the next second. It was as if every moment was our last moment," she said. Albag also noted the lack of hygiene during captivity and only received permission to use the bathroom twice a day - in the morning and evening.
She noted her inability to look at the terrorists in the eye, but she also said she "tried to act like everything was fine.
"There were a lot of things they did that crossed our boundaries. There were a lot of things that we would set a limit to. I don't care if you want to look at us in the middle of the night, you don't come into my room when I'm sleeping."
Albag also said she lost ten kilos due to lack of food in captivity, saying that the terrorist organization only fed her and the other hostages with her limited amounts of rice and pita. "There were days when we would talk about food to satisfy our hunger, and there were days when we would drink salt water because there was no fresh water," she said.
Albag added that she had sometimes slept on the floor while she was held hostage.
In addition to the other observers, Albag also revealed to N12 that she encountered other hostages in the Gaza Strip, including Aviva and Keith Siegel. She described them as her "parents in that situation."
Keith Siegel was released during the hostage deal's first phase just a week after Albag.
Albag said that their captors had given them Arabic names during their captivity. She also recalled a conversation she had with them about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, noting that the terrorists "thought that Hitler was a genius, that he was wise and just." She also said that Hamas terrorists tried to get information about the IDF from them, to which she told them that she "didn't know anything."
She also mentioned the emotional abuse she received from Hamas. She was told that the Israeli government, more specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, were not working to secure her release. Albag recalled moments where, in an effort to make her feel guilty and assert their control over her, the guards holding her got angry because some of their families were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
The released hostage also mentioned that, while in captivity, she knew about demonstrations across Israel for her release, heard about rescue missions of other hostages, and also asked Hamas for months for them to make a video of her to provide evidence of her signs of life to her family.
The terrorist organization released a propaganda video of her in early January. "I'm only 19 years old. I have my entire life in front of me, but now my entire life has been put on pause," she said.
Albag's father told KAN on Sunday that his daughter, as well as the other observers who were kidnapped, will not return to IDF service and will be discharged from military service upon completion of their rehabilitation. Albag's mother told Israel's public broadcaster that "Right now, she doesn’t want to return to the army," hinting that she may decide to return to military service.
The N12 interview ended with Albag showing that she got a new tattoo, which includes the date of her release from captivity, which was January 25.
Ronit Mathias, Gadi Zaig, and Sam Halpern contributed to this report.