2023 Israel-Palestine Armed Conflict

'I don't believe in peace now,' released Gaza hostage tells BBC​


An Israeli peace activist who was seized from her home on 7 October and held hostage for 53 days in Gaza has told the BBC how her ordeal destroyed her belief that peace is possible between Palestinians and Israelis.

In her first UK interview since being freed in November, Ada Sagi, 75, also told Emma Barnett on Radio 4's Today programme how she was held in an apartment by paid guards, that Hamas kept her in a hospital before her release - and that she now believes the world hates Jews.

"I don't believe in peace, no. I don't believe, sorry," the Arabic and Hebrew teacher said. "I understand Hamas don't want it."

Ms Sagi lived for decades in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border, trying to help reconciliation efforts by teaching Israelis Arabic to speak to their neighbours.

In the autumn of 2023, she was planning to come to London to visit her son Noam and celebrate her birthday.
But all that changed when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza, Ms Sagi among them.

Ada, who turned 75 while held hostage by those she describes as “Hamas terrorists”, was finally freed 53 days later.

Ada Sagi was released in November after 53 days in captivity in Gaza

It has taken six months for the life-long peace activist to be ready to talk to the British media about her experience and her views of those who took her freedom, her home and her belief in peace.

She is aware of the 116 hostages still left behind, 41 of whom Israel says are presumed dead, and is urging the Israeli government to agree a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

"Israel have to do the deal... bring back home all these hostages who [are] alive and also dead," she says.

Ms Sagi describes how, when she was first taken into Gaza, she and some other hostages were hidden in a family home with children, but the following day taken to an apartment in the southern city of Khan Younis because it was "dangerous".

The apartment owner, Ms Sagi said, told them his wife and children had been sent to stay with his in-laws. The man, she added, was a nurse.

She said students were being paid to watch over them. "I heard them say... 70 shekels [£14.82; $18.83] for a day," she said.
"It's a lot of money in Gaza because they have no work. And if you have work not with Hamas, it's no more than 20 shekels for a day," she said.

Ms Sagi was among 105 hostages released in November in return for a week-long ceasefire and some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

She described the terrible uncertainty of the run up to her release on the fifth day of the deal along with nine other Israelis and two Thais.

"Every knocking on the door you think there is somebody coming to take you," she said.

When the hostages heard there was a deal and that the older women would be released, she said one of the women eventually freed with her was "terrified" she might have been too young to be included.

"But our housekeeper said: ‘No. You came together, you go together,’" she explained.

On day 49 - a Friday - Ms Sagi said they were told: "You are going home", which she didn't believe.

"At lunchtime, they gave us food... they take us by car to Khan Younis and we go [un]til the border of Rafah [on the border with Egypt]."

But something had gone wrong and they had to return to Khan Younis.

"We are told they are releasing women with children, [and you feel] all the happiness that you are going to be released, and [then] something goes wrong," she said.

When they got into the city, Ms Sagi said, they were taken to a hospital - which she believes was southern Gaza's main hospital, Nasser - and told: "You are staying here."

Ms Sagi said: "People say that they are not involved. They're involved... and getting money for each of us."

Testimony from a number of other released hostages places 10 hostages in total at Nasser hospital, one of whom remains in captivity.

When asked by the BBC to comment on Ms Sagi’s allegations, the hospital's director, Dr Atef al-Hoot, denied that any hostages were kept there and said it only provided humanitarian services.

The Israeli military has previously said its troops detained "about 200 terrorists who were in the hospital" during a raid on Nasser hospital in February, and that they found ammunition as well as unused medicines intended for Israeli hostages.

Hamas has denied Israeli claims that its fighters have been operating inside Nasser and other hospitals across Gaza.

Ada Sagi and her son Noam had hoped to celebrate her 75th birthday in London before she was kidnapped

Ms Sagi said she and the other residents of Nir Oz who survived the 7 October attacks were now living in apartments in the city of Kiryat Gat.

She is writing a book and working with children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “It’s made me feel good that I can help other people,” she said.

She is also keen to continue talking about her ordeal, despite the strong emotions it brings up.

"I lost my home. I lost my freedom - the whole place that I [have] to go back. Our village - kibbutz - is destroyed," she said.

“I cried good. I'm not ‘iron woman’, like everybody says. Sometimes you cry and it's good. My mother would say: ‘To cry, it cleans the eye.’”
 
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khaine said:
"When the hostages heard there was a deal and that the older women would be released, she said one of the women eventually freed with her was "terrified" she might have been too young to be included."
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Rate me MATI, but the implications here really remove any scraps of sympathy I might have had for gazroaches
 
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Destruction in Rafah:

Terrorist drone struck in Beit Hanoun:

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A squad commander in Hamas's elite Nukha force during the October 7 terror onslaught was killed in a recent airstrike in northern Gaza's Beit Hanoun, the military says.

Ahmed Hassan Salameh a-Swarkeh, according to the IDF, invaded Israeli towns on October 7, and was later behind sniper attacks against Israeli forces in Beit Hanoun.

The IDF says it was tracking a-Swarkeh for a lengthy period, and he was eventually spotted by troops of the 414th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit, before an Israeli Air Force drone struck and killed him.

"Before the strike, steps were taken to prevent harm to civilians. No civilians were harmed," the military says in a statement.
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QE65 said:
It's sad that quite a number of those living in the neighboring kibbutzim that were raided on Oct. 7th were likely more receptive to the Palestinian cause. It's a brutal way of getting your worldview shattered. These revelations plus the Al-Jazeera journalist housing a hostage in his own home are muddying the waters for a Gazan/Hamas distinction.
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Honsetly, I'm pretty sure that's what Bibi has been saying from the rooftop Since October 8th. And he's looking for ANYBODY who'll agree with him. And I guess Trump is that person who agrees with him.
 
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Both sides of this retarded conflict are deserving of the gas chamber but sadly the world does not work off of what is deserved. Islam is a literal death cult which should be stamped out in its entirety. They meet every single definition of a cult. Violent threats against apostates, encouraging lying about their true goals/beliefs, encouraging infiltrating places of power, rigidness in doctrine. Jizzrael and Jews on the other hand are a rogue state made both geographically and politically manifest. Jews are able to flout the law both national and international, their entire religion is objectively evil to anyone with a brain (sucking blood from baby penises and torturing chickens comes to mind).

Both sides are retards deserving death but unfortunately a leader willing to do the needful is very rare. If only the great Khan was still around. The best we can hope for is that both sides massacre each other followed by a worldwide famine which ends up causing the entire world to stop shipping any food to the middle east so they all starve.
 
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An IDF soldier was seriously wounded by a Hezbollah explosive drone impact near the northern community of Ayelet HaShahar earlier today.

The military says the soldier was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Hezbollah claimed to have attacked an army base with several explosive-laden drones. The IDF reported intercepting one of them.
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I hope he wasn't standing around trying to film like the retards in the clip.

Workers at the Beirut airport say that Hezbollah is using it for missile storage:
Hezbollah is storing huge quantities of Iranian weapons, missiles, and explosives in Beirut’s main civilian airport, according to airport whistleblowers.

The cache allegedly includes Iranian-made Falaq unguided artillery rockets, Fateh-110 short-range missiles, road-mobile ballistic missiles and M-600 missiles with ranges of over 150 to 200 miles.

Also at the airport is the AT-14 Kornet, laser-guided anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), huge quantities of Burkan short-range ballistic missile and explosive RDX, a toxic white powder also known as cyclonite or hexagon.

The disclosures will raise fears that the Rafic Hariri airport, just four miles from the city centre, could become a major military target.

One airport worker, speaking to The Telegraph on condition of anonymity, said: “This is extremely serious, mysterious large boxes arriving on direct flights from Iran are a sign that things got worse.

“When they started to come through the airport, my friends and I were scared because we knew that there was something strange going on.”

He raised fears that an attack on the airport or explosion there could cause significant damage, and compared a possible blast to the one that ripped through the port and damaged much of downtown Beirut in 2020.

“Beirut will be cut off from the world, not to mention the number of casualties and damage,” he warned. “It’s just a matter of time before a disaster also happens at the airport.”

Hezbollah has previously been accused of using the civilian airport for weapon storage in the past, but the whistleblower claimed it has escalated since the conflict began in October.

In November, “unusually big boxes” arrived on a direct flight from Iran. “This doesn’t happen often, but it did happen exactly when everyone in Lebanon was talking about the possibility of war,” the first worker added.

Another whistleblower claimed: “For years I have been watching Hezbollah operating at Beirut airport, but when they do it during a war, it turns the airport into a target.

“If they keep bringing in these goods I’m not allowed to check, I really believe I’ll die from the explosion or I’ll die from Israel bombing ‘the goods’. It’s not just us, it’s the ordinary people, the people coming in and out, going on holiday. If the airport is bombed, Lebanon is finished.”
Hezbollah leaders have previously come under Western sanctions for smuggling through the airport.

Despite sanctions, staff at the airport claim Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s second in command and the head of its security apparatus, has become a notoriously inconspicuous figure at the airport.

“Wafiq Safa is always showing up at customs,” one whistleblower claimed, citing close relationships with the customs managers. “I feel like if we don’t do what they say, our families will be in danger.”

In a city that has been battered economically since 2019, the whistleblower claims workers collaborating with Hezbollah “walk around like peacocks” with new watches and smartphones, and drive new cars. “A lot of money [is] being passed under the table,” he added.

In a statement, the IDF said: “Hezbollah’s strategy to hide weapons and operate from civilian neighbourhoods stems from its intentions to draw the IDF to target these civilian areas in times of escalation.

“If Hezbollah were to target Israeli civilians from these sites, the IDF would have no choice but to react, potentially placing Lebanese civilians in harm’s way, causing international outrage toward the IDF.”

Ghassan Hasbani, the former deputy prime minister and an MP for the Lebanese Forces party, said Hezbollah’s control of the airport has long been a concern for Lebanon and more so now if it increasingly becomes a potential military target in the conflict with Israel.

He called for action to assess risks at the airport for fear of a repeat of the tragic port disaster of 2020. “It’s very difficult to know who can take action,” he said. “The last time the government tried to take action in 2008, there was a violent reaction by Hezbollah.

“The area all around the airport is controlled by Hezbollah so many people are concerned about passage through the airport of Beirut, which is why many Gulf countries have at times imposed bans on their citizens travelling there,” he said.

“Weapons being transported from Iran to Hezbollah across border entry points or even weapon components, endangers both the Lebanese population and the non Lebanese travelling through and living in the country.”

Taking action is all but impossible without international intervention to implement relevant UN resolutions, he said. “The entrenchment of Hezbollah is everywhere, not only in the airport but in the port, the judiciary, it’s across society.

“The public administration now is largely hijacked by Hezbollah and it’s very difficult to remove that without changing the militia-backed power game that exists today.”

A security source at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) told The Telegraph: “We have been aware of this for years, but we are unable to do anything without international legal action. We are hand tied to do what we’d really like, which is to close the airport and have all the weapons and explosives removed.”

For years, Israel has carried out attacks on Damascus and Aleppo airports in Syria where Iran transfers weapons from production facilities to its proxies in the region, including Hezbollah. Several of these have been on civilian flights.

In November, Damascus airport was forced to close after strikes saw all flights diverted.
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http://telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...res-large-quantities-iranian-weapons-airport/
 
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Fanatical Pragmatist said:
Rate me MATI, but the implications here really remove any scraps of sympathy I might have had for gazroaches
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Having irl friends in Israel, I can’t express in words how much October 7th radicalized every group in Israeli society. Even the most left wing tree huggers have adopted “Palestine must FUCKING BURN”. And with each passing month, I increasingly sympathize with this sentiment.
 
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Suburban Bastard said:
Even the most left wing tree huggers have adopted “Palestine must FUCKING BURN”.
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You’d think. This was the sentiment at the start, most definitely, but over time they’ve gone back to their old shit. I swear these people have goldfish memory, it’s incredible how only a few months and some pictures of dead Gazans (oh no, consequences for my actions?!) are enough to mold their smooth brains back into compliance. They never fucking learn, if this wake up call hasn’t been enough then there’s no hope for them, nothing will. If there was some magical survey that was 100% accurate to true opinions and not fabricated or influenced, that surveyed every single Palestinian, and they all unanimously voted for death to Israelis, these retards would still die fighting in the streets for “NOT ALL PALESTINIANS!”
I’m honestly astounded by this level of cuckening. I hate these people so much, genuinely.
 
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Maori Kiwifruit Growers said:
When the Lebanon war kicks off shit will get interesting although we (and the smart world) knows Palestine is a side show. But honestly fuck em. They should have been cast off to the desert or some other shit country.
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Paliniggers always think they're important to the world. They've got a conflated sense of self importance because of attention they're given when they've had 0 contributions to the world and history beyond blowing themselves up and living as perpetual victims. They, much like the niggers, fall under the "WE WUZ KANGZ N SHIEEET" mindset and as we have seen, some whiteys have been culturally enriched by the Palestinians (Remember the German girl who was shown off?)

Let's also not forget that the Palestinian simps always forget that the Palestinians are not dindu nuthins when there is already a documentary out there (Screams Before Silence) with a few accounts of rapes by Hamas.
 
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