Naama Levy, one of the four female IDF soldiers released from Hamas captivity on Saturday, is speaking out for the first time.
‘After 477 days, I’m finally home,’ Levy wrote on Instagram. ‘I’m safe and protected, surrounded by family and friends, and I am feeling better by the day.’
In the post, Levy expressed her gratitude to ‘Israeli combat soldiers and the Israeli people,’ saying she saw how they were fighting for her release. ‘Thank you all. I love you,’ Levy wrote.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists kidnapped Levy alongside Liri Albag, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev, and Agam Berger. All the girls, except Berger, were released as part of Israel and Hamas’ ceasefire deal.
Levy revealed that she was alone most of the time for the first 50 days of captivity. However, once she was reunited with the other soldiers taken from her base, they stuck together and ‘strengthened each other every day until our release and also after it.’
‘We are waiting for Agami and the rest of the hostages to return so we can complete the recovery process.’
Berger, who Levy mentioned in the post, is expected to be released on Thursday along with Arbel Yehoud and an unnamed male hostage.
A video of Levy on the day she was kidnapped went viral. She was seen wearing a black shirt and blood-soaked gray sweatpants as an armed man pulls her from a Jeep. Her ankles slashed, Levy was clearly struggling to walk after her apparently violent abduction. Levy became a symbol for the plight of the female hostages and victims of Hamas’ surprise attacks.
In a November 2023 essay for The Free Press, Levy’s mother, Ayelet Levy Shachar, emphasized that though the video of her daughter’s kidnapping was seen around the world, it was ‘totally unrepresentative of the life she had led until October 7.’
‘When she is released, I pray that the image of her abduction, and the experience of what that image represents, isn’t how she comes to see the world,’ Shachar wrote at the time.
Upon Levy, Albag, Gilboa and Ariev’s release, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said that ‘their return today represents a moment of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of spirit, while serving as a painful reminder of the urgency to bring back the 90 hostages still in Gaza.’
More than 15 months into the Israel-Hamas war, which started with the brutal surprise attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, dozens of hostages remain in Gaza.