Albag was one of four soldiers released Saturday who disrupted Hamas’s attempt to humiliate them onstage, showing their spirits were unbroken.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Liri Albag, one of the four IDF soldiers released Saturday by Hamas in exchange for 200 terrorists, told her father that no one was innocent in Gaza, her father reported to 103FM Monday.
“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 told interviewers Yinon Magal and Ben Caspit.
When asked how his daughter was treated in captivity, he answered that as there are still hostages in danger in Gaza, he couldn’t talk freely, “but let’s just say they aren’t our friends. They are our enemy who wants to kill us.”
“We have to get everyone back and be on guard,” he continued, “and if they shoot the tiniest thing [at Israel], they should be obliterated.”
He also talked about the show of humiliation Hamas tried to put on before letting the young women go, setting up a stage where the four were presented to a crowd of hostile Arabs.
“The Hamas terrorists demanded that the girls speak, so Liri and the others said, ‘Not only will we not speak, we’re going to make a victory gesture and ruin the whole show for them.’ As soon as they made the gesture, they took the girls off the stage,” Albag said.
As seen by millions around the world, the four raised their arms and waved to the crowd, pointed forefingers in the air to signal they were “No. 1,” and made the “V” for victory sign, all the while smiling jubilantly, showing that their spirits had not been broken after 15 months of harsh imprisonment.
“She told me that had they let her speak, she would have said one sentence in Arabic – ‘My name is Liri Albag and I’m number one,’” he recounted.
The proud father talked of his daughter’s strength, saying that its extent surprised her family, and he called her a hero.
He said that his daughter hinted that she had saved the life of Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza and released along with some 85 women and children in the week-long hostage deal in late November 2023.
Soussana, who was the first former hostage to describe publicly how she had been sexually abused and tortured in captivity, will reveal the details that Liri would not talk about on the news show Uvda Tuesday night, he said.
Albag took the opportunity on the radio to clarify that his harsh words the previous day against those who opposed the current hostage deal, where he said in part that “the people will hold you accountable,” were directed only at the country’s leaders.
“God forbid, I don’t judge bereaved families,” he said. “They are our soul. It is thanks to the fallen that my children are here.”
“Every bereaved family has the right to say what they want … and I will accept everything with love from them. God forbid that what I said is taken out of context,” he added.
A number of bereaved families of fallen soldiers, especially of those murdered by Palestinian prisoners released in in previous deals, have spoken out against the agreement, believing it to be a moral capitulation and a future security nightmare for Israel that will cost the lives of many more future victims.