‘One more day as a hostage would have killed her’

Elderly hostage released by Hamas is in serious condition, after spending 49 days without her medication.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

If an elderly hostage had stayed just one more day in Hamas hands, she would not have made it out alive, said the doctor caring for her in Soroka Hospital Monday, and she is still in life-threatening condition.

Elma Avraham, 84, was among the 14 Israeli hostages who was released Sunday in the third tranche of the prisoner-exchange agreement with Hamas. She was the only hostage so far to be flown by helicopter to hospital upon arrival in Israel due to her precarious state of health.

“Elma was evacuated in serious condition, really serious,” Prof. Motti Klein, director of the general intensive care department in Soroka, said in an interview with Channel 12. “It was a matter of another day and we would not be talking [of her] in the same language. She is receiving treatment in the general intensive care unit. She is still in in serious condition, unstable, sedated and ventilated. Her life is in danger.”

Avraham suffers from an autoimmune disease, and has undergone open heart surgery in the past, necessitating her taking several medications on a regular basis. She received none of them from the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped her from her home in Kibbutz Nachal Oz on October 7 along with 240 other people, during their massacre of 1,200 people in Gaza envelope communities and a dance rave in the area.

“From the tests we conducted, blood tests and other tests, her condition is the result of not receiving the drugs she was supposed to receive, drugs that actually keep her alive,” Klein charged. “We know this from other medical situations, what happens when patients do not receive such drugs for other reasons.”

“There is no doubt that is the story in this case,” he continued, because of the “extreme state” she was in due to the lack of the correct medications in her system.

According to Klein, the drugs Avraham is taking are not hard to get, either.

“They’re very basic,” he said. “You don’t have to be in a very elite hospital to receive these drugs, every person can get them at a clinic in one of the funds to which they belong. It’s at the level of a family doctor, a doctor who monitors reactions [to the drugs]…. Any medical official who visited would know how to say, ‘This is what needs to be done.’ It’s not an expensive drug either, it’s a drug that’s available.”

Hamas has refused to allow the International Red Cross to visit the hostages, who are being held in different locations in the Gaza Strip. According to the terrorist organization that is in charge of the coastal enclave, they also do not have them all. An unknown number are being held by other terror groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and some may even be in the hands of individuals.

Hamas is, however, the ruling entity with by far the most power, and Israelis believe that a few phone calls is all it would take for the Iranian proxy to get the necessary health information on all the abductees, if not force the other kidnappers to release their hostages to Hamas itself.

The doctors cannot simply rush the medicines in one fell swoop back into her body, Klein said, which explains why she is still in serious condition.

“We have to wait patiently” for the drugs to have an effect, he explained. “We have to do it slowly, gradually, wait for a reaction…. We know what needs to be done and we’re waiting for her to respond. We are optimistic that she will respond and be fine.”

gaza stripHamashamas hostagesOperation Iron SwordsPrisoner exchangeSoroka hospital