Liri Albag’s parents say their hostage daughter ‘is not the same’ in video

The parents of Liri Albag, an IDF observer taken hostage, said in interviews broadcast Friday that the video released by Hamas last week showed their daughter looking pale and frightened – adding that she did not was not “the same”.

Shira and Eli Albag had called on Israeli media not to broadcast images of their child, citing a desire to preserve his dignity.

They noted, however, that they expected members of the government to watch the footage, and were dismayed that some had not.

If it was Hamas who wrote the hostage’s intervention in the clip, certain words certainly came from Liri, demonstrating the extent to which she despairs of finally being able to regain her freedom, according to her parents.

In the three-and-a-half minute sequence where Liri Albag appears – it was released by the terrorist group last Saturday – the observer is visibly desperate, begging to be released.

Since the video was broadcast, “we have not managed to get out of bed and when we get up, we see a person already half dead,” Eli Albag told the cameras of the public channel Kan.

“We are in an abyss – in the darkest place, in the deepest abyss. It’s worse than anything we could have imagined,” he said. “Everything is heavy, it’s like I have a truck on my body.”

Speaking to Channel 13, Eli Albag said that when the video was broadcast, “we were sitting in the living room and suddenly we saw a photo of Liri, a sign of life.”

“My two daughters were sitting on the floor and my wife was screaming, and I didn’t know who to go to first, who to hug and who to console first,” he added. “I heard Shira…screaming ‘Ma Liri’ and sobbing. We gave her water and she fainted.”

“I screamed, I said we should be happy she’s alive,” he continued. “Look at her, she’s alive.”

“When I saw that, it felt like I was punched in the gut,” he said.

Shira Albag, who is scheduled to speak Saturday evening in Tel Aviv at a rally calling for a hostage deal, told the N12 news channel that she had only watched the video on day of its broadcast.

“I haven’t seen her since but she’s always on my mind,” she explained. “I want to remember Liri as I know her, not as she appears in the video: fainted, scared, trembling.”

“She’s not the same girl – she’s very scared, her eyes are blank,” noted Shira Albag. “My Liri was always confident, fearless, strong – I saw that she was extremely pale, that she had lost a lot, a lot of weight… I saw black under her eyes, I since she hadn’t seen the light of day for a long time.

Eli Albag, for his part, told Channel 13 that he has watched the video hundreds of times.

“I attach myself to every word, to every letter,” he commented. “She seems bloated, and we spoke to doctors about her condition and they told us it was due to lack of food and protein – [les otages] only eat bread.

“There is also a medical problem, an eye problem because Liri wears glasses and in the video she appears without glasses,” he said.

He noted that in the clip, on several occasions, “you see her crouching and curled up – you understand that it took a lot of time on camera.” We asked hostages who were released how they felt when they were being filmed and they told us it was a very difficult thing.”

The parents felt, in front of Channel 12 cameras, that their daughter’s pleas, when she asks to finally regain her freedom, were not entirely scripted by the terrorist group.

“I think they told him [de dire] the majority of things but there was a sentence that she said, something like ‘it’s hell here, we’re in a crazy world’,” notes Eli Albag.

At that moment, on screen, his wife corrects him by saying: ‘a crazy story’. These are Liri’s words.”

“And it’s certain that Liri said that from the bottom of her heart,” the father exclaimed in front of the cameras. “She also said, ‘Take me back, I’m only 19,’ and that’s from Liri too.”

When asked if they wanted the hostages to be brought back as part of a military operation, Shira Albag replied: “Absolutely not.”

“We know full well what orders Hamas gave to the jailers: to kill the hostages as soon as they sense that the soldiers are approaching,” she added. “Liri and all the hostages must return within the framework of an agreement and within this framework only.”

“The heroic rescue of the dead bodies that were repatriated yesterday – as far as I am concerned, it is not doing everything to save the hostages because before, they were very much alive,” she added, making reference to the recovery this week of the bodies of Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne, a father and son who were kidnapped from Kibbutz Holit on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists led by the Hamas had stormed southern Israel. The gunmen massacred more than 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage, sparking the war in Gaza.

After Hamas released the video showing Liri Albag, Netanyahu called the girl’s parents. “The time has come, he will do everything to bring back the hostages,” the grieving father told channel N12.

For her part, Shira Albag said she “begged” the prime minister and cried, asking him to bring back her daughter.

“I was the one who gave birth to Liri but today she is in their hands,” she noted. “She is also a hostage of the government, of the State of Israel, which is not doing everything in its power to bring back the hostages.”

“And if she hasn’t come back, it’s because they’re not doing everything,” she said.

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“I know we asked that the video not be broadcast, but I expect all decision-makers and all members of government to watch it,” she continued, attacking to Minister of Regional Cooperation David Amsalem, who said he did not want to see the clip.

“Before going to bed, he should take the time to watch the footage, imagining his daughter and son sitting in the tunnels, in the dark,” she continued. “We’ll see if he sleeps well.”

Eli Albag, who has been the subject of violent attacks from Netanyahu supporters for his fierce activism in favor of finalizing a deal, suggested to the Kan cameras that the prime minister was not not enough to stop these attacks against him.

“If the head of the country really wanted it, things would happen differently,” he said.

He also expressed outrage at Netanyahu aides who allegedly leaked a Hamas document last year that had been stolen from the Israeli army to support the prime minister’s arguments against a agreement opening the door to the release of the hostages.

Government critics have accused Netanyahu of scuppering a deal to continue fighting in Gaza at the request of his far-right coalition partners.

Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein is suspected of passing a military intelligence document to a tabloid German, eager to calm public anger at the prime minister’s failure to reach a deal – anger that had reached a fever pitch after Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages who had just being assassinated at the end of August.

“Apparently, thanks to them, my daughter is still there,” he lamented. “What did they want to do with this document? Influence public opinion? [Dire que les rassemblements en faveur de l’accord sur les otages] were advantageous for Hamas?

“He had this document for three months,” Eli Albag added, apparently referring to Feldstein. “Why did he choose to make it public on the same day six of my brothers and sisters were killed? »

94 of the 251 hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 are still in Gaza – including the bodies of at least 34 people whose deaths have been confirmed by the IDF.

Hamas freed 105 civilians during a week-long truce at the end of November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages were rescued alive by troops and the bodies of 40 hostages were also found – including three who had been accidentally killed by the soldiers while trying to escape their captors.

Hamas also holds two Israeli civilians who entered the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.