When 84yearold Elma Avraham was taken hostage from her home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, she was an independent member of the community, according to her family.
When Hamas released her on Sunday, she was “fighting for her life,” according to health experts.
The greatgrandmother was released along with 16 other hostages, including a fouryearold American girl named Abigail Edan, on the third day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Although other hostages returned in good health, Avraham’s daughter told reporters that her mother arrived with a pulse of 40 beats per minute and a body temperature of just 28 degrees. The deputy director of Soroka Hospital in Beersheba said her condition remained critical and she was on ventilator support and sedated in the intensive care unit.
“They kept her in terrible conditions,” said her daughter Tali Amano outside the hospital. “My mother arrived hours before we were going to lose her.”
The speech was supported by Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “She was held in harsh conditions. She was denied vital medication. She was not visited by the Red Cross,” he said.
He said the woman was “a reminder of our crucial mission” and asked: “Who will take care of the other hostages in Gaza?”
Amano described her mother as a person who was “happy, connected and embraced by the entire community” before she was taken away. She reported that although the mother had chronic health problems, these were under control.
“They held them for 52 days in conditions that no human being should be held in,” said Hagai Levine, chief medical officer at the Forum for Missing Families and Hostages. “Simply without human dignity, an unreasonable abuse.”
Amano said he met with the Red Cross and asked them to give his mother medication, but they said they could not provide it. “My mother didn’t have to come back like this, and I have no idea how she’ll spend these days.”
A Red Cross spokesman told Portal: “We are meeting directly with the families and they have asked us to bring personal medication, but we are unable to do so.”
“We continue to demand access to the hostages, as we have done since day one, and we stand ready to carry out these visits,” he said.
A doctor accompanied Avraham as she and other hostages left the Gaza Strip.
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