Freed hostage Naama Levy: ‘I saw how you were fighting for me’

‘I’m safe and protected, surrounded by family and friends, and feeling better with each passing day.’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Freed hostage Naama Levy posted on social media Tuesday for the first time since her release, thanking her family, the IDF, and Israel.

“I want to thank the IDF soldiers and all the people of Israel. Even in captivity, I saw how you were fighting for me! Thank you, everyone; I love you,” she posted.

“I’m home. After 477 days, I’m finally home,” she wrote.

“I’m safe and protected, surrounded by family and friends, and feeling better with each passing day.”

“During the first 50 days since October 7, I was alone most of the time,” she wrote, alluding to reports that she had been kept in tunnels for the first months of her captivity with little or no social contact.

When she was able to connect with other female IDF lookouts and civilians held with her, they gave her “strength and hope,” she said. They “supported one another until the day of our release and continue to do so afterward.”

On Saturday, four female hostages were released: Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, and Liri Albag. All four were IDF lookouts who were taken captive at their post in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023.

A fifth lookout, Agam Berger, who was captured with them, is expected to be released on Thursday.

Levy expressed her hope that Agam would return soon. “We are waiting for Agam and the rest of the hostages to return so that we can complete the recovery process,” she wrote.

Liri Albag, who was freed along with Levy on Saturday, told her family that Gazan civilians were complicit in Hamas’s crimes.

“Liri told me, ‘Dad, there are two million terrorists, make no mistake. I sat with an eight-year-old boy, and with four-year-old children who would say, We spit on the Jews,. Do you understand what that means?” Eli Albag, Liri’s father, told 103FM on Monday.

He didn’t answer questions about how Liri was treated in captivity, given that there are still hostages in danger in Gaza, but he said, “Let’s just say they aren’t our friends. They are our enemy who want to kill us.”