A 38-year-old Israeli woman has spoken about the horrific moments she endured while being held hostage in Iraq for two and a half years. Elizabeth Tsurkov recounted the torture and sexual abuse she suffered, as members of Kataib Hezbollah considered her a spy. The Iran-backed militia group, which is listed as a terrorist organization in the US, “basically used me as a punching bag,” Elizabeth told the New York Times. “They whipped me everywhere,” she said. They hung her from the ceiling, beat her until she passed out, and subjected her to electric shocks.
The 38-year-old Israeli hostage’s 2.5-year ordeal in Iraq
Elizabeth, a doctoral student at Princeton University in New Jersey, was abducted on March 21, 2023, after a woman who had asked to meet her at a Baghdad café to help with ISIS research never showed up. The student was in Iraq to study the Shiite movement and agreed to meet the woman after being told they had a mutual friend. However, the meeting never took place as the woman failed to appear. Elizabeth was returning home when she was kidnapped by men in a black SUV, according to the Daily Mail. Although she screamed desperately for help and tried to escape, her kidnappers beat her and sexually abused her. “They started twisting my pinky finger, almost breaking it. So I thought it was pointless to resist further,” she said.
The kidnappers had put a bag over Elizabeth’s head and tied her hands. They took her to a windowless room in a house with only two cameras, where she remained for the next four and a half months. When they realized she was from Israel, Kataib Hezbollah members believed she was a spy. She denied any such connection, insisting she supported Palestinian rights and was critical of the Israeli government. She refused to confess to being a spy, resulting in being “hanged and tortured.” As she explained, she began fabricating confessions to allow her kidnappers to let her eat and rest. Later, a man known as “the colonel” sexually harassed her and threatened her with rape. “He was very dirty and obsessed with sex,” according to Elizabeth. The threats of sexual abuse continued, according to the 38-year-old, but they did not assault her.
38-year-old’s hostage ordeal in Iraq: coded messages in video and liberation
It took several months for the Israeli government to recognize her as a hostage and several more months for the Iraqi government to prove she was alive. In a video broadcast on Iraqi television in November 2023, Kataib Hezbollah members had forced Elizabeth to say she worked for the CIA and Israeli intelligence services. However, she used coded messages to reveal what she was experiencing. To show she was being electrocuted, she said she lived in the Gan HaHashmal neighborhood. “Hashmal” is the Hebrew word for electricity.
At the same time, she invented names for her supposed trainers, saying she worked with a man called “Ethan Numia.” “Inuim” is the Hebrew word for torture. She was finally released in early September, without warning. They drove her to a garage in Baghdad where an Iraqi official approached her and told her she was safe. She was then transferred to a house and received medical care. According to reports, Israel had asked the US to help secure Elizabeth’s release. Adam Boehler, the American envoy for hostage liberation, known for his work with hostages in Gaza, campaigned for her release. Mark Savagya, a businessman and friend of Donald Trump, also reportedly played a role in her liberation. “I honestly believe I would have died if they hadn’t gotten involved,” Tsurkov said.
A White House spokesperson did not confirm Savagya’s role in Elizabeth’s release, but told the New York Times that Trump “is always concerned about Americans held abroad” and that he was “willing to leverage our country’s power and his negotiating skills to intervene in this case.” After her release, a Kataib Hezbollah spokesperson did not acknowledge Elizabeth’s kidnapping, but claimed in a Telegram statement that she had made several “confessions” that she was a spy and recognized the fake “Ethan Nuima” as her trainer.
