Palestinian militant group Hamas has released two more Israeli hostages, both elderly women who were transferred to Israel from the Rafah crossing. One even shook hands with the Hamas youth before getting into the car.
The two Israeli women are now in a hospital in Tel Aviv and have been reunited with their families. Israeli media reported that the husbands of both women are still being held captive in Gaza.
One of the Israeli women to be released is Yeshved Lifshitz, a peace activist who helped the sick with her husband.
“She is a human rights activist,” the woman’s grandson, Daniel Lifshitz, told Reuters in Tel Aviv before the release was confirmed.
She said the Hamas fighters took her into tunnels, which she compared to a spider’s web, and said she was treated well there.
A doctor visited her while she was imprisoned in a network of tunnels inside Gaza and attended to all her needs, Lifshitz said.
Video of her release on Monday showed her turning around to shake the hand of a masked man. Asked why she had done that, she replied:
“They treated us gently and met all our needs.” Speaking to Reuters on Monday, her grandson said Lifshitz was a peace activist who used to help sick Palestinians in Gaza receive medical treatment in Israel, meeting them at the main border crossing and driving them to hospitals.