“When I was on the bike, my head was on one side and the rest of my body on the other side,” she said. “The young men hit me on the way. They didn’t break my ribs but it was painful and I had difficulty breathing.”
Once in Gaza, however, she said her captors “treated her well”, giving her and other captives “the same food they ate” and bringing in a doctor to provide medicine.
“They treated us gently, and provided all our needs,” she said, when questioned about her reason for shaking the hand of one of her captors at the moment of her release.
“They seemed ready for this, they prepared for a long time, they had everything that men and women needed, including shampoo,” she added.
I think the idea is that while likely factual, the quotes presented in the article might be a bit cherry-picked.
I personally can’t find a version of her interview on video that doesn’t have cuts and actually feels complete. Translation also seems to be a bit variable, for instance, some seem to translate her next line as something like having never thought humans would be capable of doing this to another and others along the lines of not knowing how they got into this situation. Some do have her daughter translating which I’m usually inclined to trust, but we’re obviously not sure of her bias either.
Quick summary, there’s a lot of uncomfortable variety in how this press conference is being presented.
Here’s a Guardian article.
Yeah, I saw the Guardian article too and I’m personally a fan of them as a news source. This one does have a lot more detail, and overall I feel it does a lot more to cover Lifshitz’s more critical comments. I think the potential translation bias may still end up being our eventual sticking point though especially with the varying tones of the ones out there and I’m not sure how we resolve that.
Lifshitz said shalom. And yes, I enjoyed typing Lifshitz. Look into her history and what she and her husband were doing in Gaza.