Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was released by Hamas on Monday evening and taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv. The elderly woman was released along with another woman, Nurtie Cooper, 79.
Both hostages were released for health reasons after being taken along with 200 other hostages during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hamas said.
Etty Oziel, deputy director of nursing at the Sourasky-Ichilov Medical Center, said both women were doing well.
“I was glad to see two women who came back to us, well, very excited and happy. It was a great honor to see and greet these two women. We took them to the infirmary where they were reunited with their families: it was great happiness, a lot of tears, a lot of crying. They are incredible people,” Etty Oziel told the agency. Reuters.
Yocheved Lifshitz is a peace activist who, along with her husband, spent years helping sick Palestinians in the Gaza Strip get to hospital, her grandson said Reuters.
She and her husband, who remains a Hamas hostage, were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel.
Yocheved Lifshitz and Nurti Cooper were the third and fourth hostages freed by the Islamic militant group. On Friday, Hamas released the American woman and her daughter.