Yocheved Lifshitz.Photo:Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty

Yocheved Lifshitz speaks to the media outside Ichilov Hospital after she was released by Hamas last night, on October 24, 2023

Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty

Yocheved Lifshitz.ERIK MARMOR/AFP via Getty

Israeli Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, holds a press conference in Tel Aviv after she was released by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 24, 2023.

ERIK MARMOR/AFP via Getty

Speaking to reporters upon her release, Lifshitz said that she and the other hostages slept on mattresses within the tunnels, and survived on the same foods that the Hamas militants ate. She added that she and others received treatment from doctors during their incarceration.

“They really took care of the sanitary side of things so that we didn’t get sick,” Lifshitz said, per CNN.

Lifshitz also described the moment of the attack on Oct. 7, saying, “All of a sudden on a Saturday morning, everything was very quiet. There was a hard pounding on the settlement."

It was then, she added, that “hordes” of Hamas militants broke through the fences surrounding the kibbutz and began taking hostages.

Yocheved Lifshitz.Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty

Tel Aviv: Yocheved Lifshitz, one of the two freed hostages, holds a cup of water while leaving Ichilov Hospital after she was released by Hamas from the Gaza Strip last night.

Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty

“It was very, very difficult and unpleasant,” she said, according to CNN.

Cooper and Lifshitz’s release comes on the heels of the release of two American women — a mother and a daughter — freed last week.

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Just last week, PresidentJoe Bidentraveled to Israelto meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that he wanted the people of Israel and the world “to know where the United States stands."

source: people.com