The female Israeli hostages who were freed on Saturday disobeyed their Hamas captors and made victory poses during the hand-off ceremony to spoil the terrorists’ photo-op, one of their fathers revealed.
The revelation came as one of the ex hostages spoke out, praising the Israeli military for fighting to free her during her long months in the clutches of the terror group.
Eli Albag, whose daughter Liri was among the four soldiers freed over the weekend, said the women made the decision to subvert Hamas’ celebration in Gaza City by staying quiet — despite being given orders to talk at the event.
“Liri and the other girls decided, We’re not only not going to speak. We’ll make victory gestures and spoil the whole show they’d planned,” Albag told local Radio 103, per a translation from the Times of Israel.
During the ceremony, Liri, Karina Ariev, Naama Levy and Daniella Gilboa could be seen smiling and waving at a large crowd of Hamas operatives and supporters gathered at Gaza City’s Palestinian Square.
Liri gave several thumbs-up poses as she waved to the crowd, with the women refusing to speak at the podium put in-front of them.
“The moment they did the victory gestures, [Hamas] realized that they’d got themselves into a mess with these girls, took them down from the stage, and didn’t let them speak,” Albag said.
Liri told her father that if Hamas did force her to speak at the event, she prepared a single sentence to say in Arabic.
“My name is Liri Albag, and I’m number one,” she told her dad.
On Tuesday, Levy wrote on Instagram that she is slowly recovering from her ordeal.
“After 477 days, I’m finally home. I’m safe and protected, surrounded by family and friends, and I am feeling better by the day,” she said.
She also thanked, “Israeli combat soldiers and the Israeli people.”
All four hostages released Saturday had been part of an Israeli military surveillance unit and were kidnapped from the Nahal Oz military base on the Gaza border during Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
A fifth soldier who was abducted alongside them, Agam Berger, 20, is still being held in captivity.
Levy, in her post, said the female soldiers were all held together for much of their time in captivity, and she is aching for Berger to be freed.
“We are waiting for Agami and the rest of the hostages to return so we can complete the recovery process,” she said.
The women were previously featured in Hamas propaganda video covered in blood and injuries after Hamas slaughtered their fellow IDF soldiers inside the military base.
Hamas has released seven hostages so far as part of the cease-fire deal, with a total of 33 captives set to be free in the first phase of the deal.
Another six as set to be freed this week, starting Thursday, with Israeli officials believing that at least eight of the hostages to be released are dead.
Looming ahead still is the requirement for Israel and Hamas to begin on hashing out the details for the next phase of the ceasefire deal, which was broadly outlined as seeing all the remaining hostages released and achieving a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
