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Shiri Albag is the mother of the recently-freed hostage Liri Albag. Her daughter suffered in captivity, but says that the “men had it [even] worse.” More on her long captivity, and her slow recuperation at home, and above all, her observations on those “innocent Gazan civilians,” can be found here: “‘The girls suffered, but men suffer more’: Shira Albag speaks about Liri’s time in captivity,” by Liam Dev and Maya Cohen, Jerusalem Post, February 13, 2025:
After 477 days of uncertainty, endless prayers, and relentless struggle, Shira Albag wakes up from a dream—only this time, it is not a nightmare. She is finally waking up next to her daughter, Liri.
“You know, waking up with your daughter after so long, feeling her presence—it’s overwhelming,” she says. “I keep telling myself, I’m in a dream.”
Liri Albag, the IDF lookout soldier kidnapped from the Nahal Oz outpost on October 7, has not returned to the life she once knew. She is no longer the same girl who enlisted a year and a half ago. Despite the smiles and reunions with friends, something in her has changed.
“Yes and no,” Shira says when asked if her daughter is starting to return to herself. “The moment I saw Liri and she shouted at us, ‘Liri Number 1’—our private joke at home—I thought, that’s my daughter. I was afraid of what I would get back, but it’s her. It’s my Liri.”
Yet for every joyful moment, there are silent ones—the realization that the road ahead is long.
“She’s grown up a lot,” Shira says, her voice heavy. “She understands so much, but she’s also very quiet at times. On one hand, she talks a lot, but on the other, it’s like everything is mixed together.”
It turns out Liri did not just survive—she found a way to navigate through hell.
“The moment she was taken, she realized her reality. She was now a hostage in Gaza, and she would learn to survive.”
Survival was not a choice; it was instinct.
“‘I’ll play their game, but I’ll outsmart them,’ she told me,” Shira recalls.
Liri learned Arabic, studied her captors’ psychology, and knew when to speak and when to stay silent. She did not resist, did not rebel—she survived….
And Liri Albag not only survived, but helped other Israelis to survive. Another hostage released earlier, Amit Soussana, described how Liri had saved her life, by convincing Soussana’s captors that she was not a soldier. Soldiers who were being held hostage received the cruelest treatment from Hamas; some — we don’t know how many — were executed..
When Shira remembers the day her daughter was taken, anger fills her voice.
“There’s so much anger about October 7,” she admits. “Not toward the soldiers who fought bravely, but toward the fact that no one was there who knew what to do. They sat there for hours—nearly four hours—watching their friends… some were still alive. If someone had come, they could have been saved.”
There was a terrible failure of Israeli intelligence leading up to the October 7 attacks. Signals that had been picked up by Israeli intelligence, about a possible large-scale cross-border operation by Hamas, were unaccountably ignored by the leaders of the IDF. In fact, two IDF commando companies were diverted to Judea and Samaria from the Gaza border just days before the onslaught. There were IDF lookouts, like 19-year-old Liri Albag, but only a handful of soldiers to guard the kibbutzim, and only private security guards to protect the party-goers at the Nova music festival.
They waited at the kibbutzim as 6,000 Hamas members, accompanied by hundreds of Gazan civilians eager to watch or even join in the fun, including the looting of Israeli homes, poured into Israel from Gaza for the IDF. But it took four hours before the IDF finally arrived, many hours too late. 1,200 Israelis had been subject to torture, rape, mutilation, before being murdered, and 251 Israelis had been taken back to Gaza as hostages where, like Liri Albag, they were subject to every sort of physical and mental torment.
It wasn’t just Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who held Israelis captive. It was also those people we call “innocent civilians” who held some of the hostages captive in their homes. “The so-called uninvolved civilians” — including even their “little children” — took part in holding Israelis captive.
The most important message, repeated three times in this brief interview with Liri Albag’s mother, is that not just Hamas combatants, but all the people in Gaza, including children, are implicated in the holding of hostages. Some civilians kept the hostages, as domestic or sex slaves, in their homes. In Shira Albag’s estimation, there are no “innocent” Gazans; they all supported Hamas’ attack, and were delighted to learn of the atrocities inflicted by 6,000 Hamas operatives on October 7. These “innocent civilians” ran beside the motorcycles and flatbed trucks on which Israelis were carried back into Gaza, beating the terrified and often wounded men, women, and children. In every encounter with the hostages inside Gaza during the sixteen months of war, those “innocent civilians” exhibited the same cruelty as Hamas members.
That is why Shiri Albag says that “unfortunately, there are two million terrorists in Gaza. Two million. Liri was in their homes, and the children — yes, even the children — are part of this. It’s not just those carrying rifles and wearing green headbands. The so-called uninvolved civilians are not uninvolved at all. And, unfortunately, we’re going to have to fight them all.”
“Unfortunately, there are two million terrorists in Gaza.” While I don’t expect the rest of the world to care about this, it is crucial for the Israelis to understand this. The only answer for Gaza is to empty it of its current inhabitants for Jews to resettle it and for it to become a formal part of the State of Israel.
What Im reading is that the ceasefire rearmed Hamas and brought it new battalions of terrorists. The , terror tunnels are restocked, Hamas now set up remote cameras with explosive to blow up IDF soldiers that may enetr, from afar. Those cameras came in with “aid” included in Witcoff’s deal along with 134 million just sent to Hamas by the Trump admin also in this deal.
Trump said at CPAC that he wants (due to the tears of hostage families) to draw out the ceasefire deal for “every dead hostage body.” This will result in many more dead IDF soldiers who have to fight inGaza again. Their families do not count.
The current admin is not making much sense. It seems to favorHamas, despite some words of support fro Israel.
Someone on FB called me a baby killer because I support Israel and the Jewish people. They’re not aware than even Gaza kids are evil to the core, just like their parents and Hamas. Muslim kids are taught to hate Israel and kill Jews from the beginning of their evil lives.
“Unfortunately, there are two million terrorists in Gaza.”
Yes, Hamas and their enablers are like a bad infestation of cockroaches. They crawl out from filth and devour and spoil everything. They’ve got to be eradicated.
“There are two million terrorists in Gaza”.
Given this was proven beyond any doubt, all future policies should be adjusted accordingly.
if and when all the hostages are released and that is most unlikely to happen considering the games the murderers are playing , the whole of gaza should be carpet bombed into one giant pile of rubble , a memorial to all the soldiers and jewish civilians who have lost their lives for no reason and the incompetence of the idf on oct. 7 . there is no guarantee the remaining hostages are still alive and that they will be freed . hamas have got their get out of jail card and they will milk it even if it takes years . if they murder children they will murder anyone . as the muslims tell us constantly that they love death , oblige them whenever and wherever you can and as often as it arises . dont take prisoners as you will only have to let them out as an exchange . time to play hardball and mean it .
The plan and simple reason we need a Borer Wall to Keep Out those Islamic radicals and their Sharia Laws were used to our U.S. Constitution and there is not one single Amendment which allows for Illegal Aliens to Move In and Take Over our Jobs and Homes
Unfortunately, there are two million terrorists in Gaza.” – – Just a small fraction of the 1.5 billion of their fellow muslims worldwide!
Heartbroken reading this and I don’t understand how Israeli intelligence blew this.
“There was a terrible failure of Israeli intelligence leading up to the October 7 attacks.” That’s not true, Israel was lulled into a sense of false security because up until October 6th, there was a ceasefire agreement in place. However, Muslims can only make a hudna, a temporary truce with the infidel. Muhammad told his followers, if they find themselves in the weaker position against a stronger foe, then seek a hudna. This allows the Muslim to lie to the infidel, make a false peace and during this period of quiet, the Muslim will use this period to rearm and strength his forces. Then when the Muslim force has regrown in strength and numbers, they will then attack the infidel and give no mercy!
Unfortunately for Liri Albag, it takes being held as a hostage by Hamas in Gaza to shed any illusions that Jews can make peace with Muslims. Under the Islamic principle of taqiyyah, the Muslim is allowed to lie to the infidel as long as he/she justifies their deception as a means to defend the faith. The bottom-line is Jews can never take the word of a Muslim nor can they ever making a lasting peace agreement with adherents of Islam.
“The bottom-line is Jews can never take the word of a Muslim nor can they ever making a lasting peace agreement with adherents of Islam”….. no one can trust their word…..no one!
Nailed it completely.
If the danger of entering buildings is too dangerous, then just level it and go on.
Is a hostage life more valuable than a soldier’s?
And no more aid
Otherwise this will just go on and on and on
it needs to end
When they are constantly told, from the time that they are born onward, that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs, how do you expect them to act?
One possible solution to getting the rest of the living hostages out in one piece, would be if Mossad could find an agent with pristine Islamic credentials, who could approach Hamas and ask for the hostages to be sold to him for a large amount so that they can be sex-trafficked. Hamas would love that idea – it would totally align with their evil thought processes. Once the agent has them in his custody, of course, they get returned to Israel without being trafficked. And, if possible, the bank reverses the BACS transaction paying for them.
There is no peace with these evil people from Egypt,Saudi Arabia and surrounding Arab nations. No such ethnic group called Palestinians- just displaced Arabs. Wipe them off the face of the Middle East and rebuild Judea and Samaria it is the ancestral home of the Hebrew people! Fact! God bless Israel,
Echo the words……..”And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, 51Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; 52Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: 53And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. 54And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man’s inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. 55But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. 56Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.”