"Am Helpless...": Mother Of Israeli Hostage Speaks Out, Pleads For Release

An Israeli mother who last saw her 19-year-old daughter being taken away by Hamas operatives in a viral video two months ago has spoken out and said that each moment her child is held hostage by the Palestinian group is "an eternity in hell". In an article published in The Free Press Journal, Ayelet Levy Sachar wrote that her daughter, Naama Levy, was staying at Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, when Hamas operatives launched its surprise attack on Israel. She said that around 7 am, she received the final message from her daughter saying, "We're in the safe room. I've never heard anything like this". 

"You have seen the video of my daughter Naama Levy. Everyone has," Ayelet Levy Sachar wrote in a heartbreaking account published Friday. "She is seriously injured. She is frightened. And I, her mother, am helpless in these moments of horror," Ms Sachar said.

According to the New York Post, Naama Levy was filmed by Hamas being dragged out of the back of a jeep at gunpoint with her hands tied and bloodied clothes. The day after the attack, Ms Sachar said she saw this video but was unable to recognise her own daughter because the woman in the clip was so "bloodied and dishevelled it was hard to tell if it was really her". It was Ms Naama's father who later called and confirmed that it was her daughter. 

"Before that day, every video our family had taken of Naama was joyful-dancing with friends, laughing with her three siblings, and simply enjoying life. Naama is only 19, but she'll always be my baby girl. A girl who truly believes in the good of all people," Ms Sachar wrote. 

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The 19-year-old has worked as a member of the "Hands of Peace" delegation which promotes peace between Israeli, Palestinian and US youth, her mother said. "But now, one video, totally unrepresentative of the life she had led until October 7, is how the world knows her," she said. 

"There are seventeen young women still in captivity. They range in age from 18 to 26. I think of what they, and my Naama, could be subjected to at every moment of the day. Each minute is an eternity in hell," Ms Sachar wrote. 

Dozens of hostages were swapped during a short-lived cease-fire at the end of last month, but Ms Naama was not one of them. The mother pointed out that on Monday State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that one of the reasons Hamas doesn't want to release the young female hostages "is they don't want these women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody". 

"Everyone knows exactly what he means," Ms Sachar wrote.