Former hostage Elizabet Tsurkov faces fury after posting pro-Gaza remarks on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, with Israelis calling her words a betrayal of victims’ memory.
Controversy has erupted in Israel after Elizabet Tsurkov, the Israeli academic recently freed from captivity in Iraq, posted an Arabic-language message on X (formerly Twitter) expressing sympathy for Gaza residents—on the very day Israel mourned the October 7 Hamas massacre.
In her post, Tsurkov wrote:
“May God grant relief to the residents of Gaza and to the hostages—hungry, wounded, and exhausted. All are paying a heavy price for the decisions of leaders who care only about their survival in power.”
The post drew instant outrage, with hundreds of Israelis accusing her of moral blindness for equating Hamas’s victims with the perpetrators’ population base. Some users told her she “should have been kidnapped again,” while others called her remarks “a desecration of the victims’ memory.”
In response, Tsurkov published another post—again in Arabic—sharing screenshots of the angry replies and lamenting that “Israelis wished I’d be kidnapped again… all because I expressed sympathy for Gazans.” She further claimed that during her captivity, Israeli media coverage of her ordeal was “filled with schadenfreude over the ‘Arab-loving woman’ who was kidnapped.”
Tsurkov’s stance reopened painful wounds just as Israel marked two years since 1,200 people were murdered and more than 150 taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. Many Israelis saw her timing as deeply insensitive, particularly while families still await news of loved ones trapped in Gaza’s tunnels.
Political commentators noted that freedom of speech does not absolve moral accountability. One wrote, “Supporting Gazans on the day Israel buried its children isn’t compassion—it’s cruelty dressed as conscience.”
While Tsurkov insists her views stem from “universal human rights,” the incident has reignited debate in Israel about the fine line between empathy and appeasement—especially toward those whose elected rulers committed one of the bloodiest massacres in Jewish history.Controversy has erupted in Israel after Elizabet Tsurkov, the Israeli academic recently freed from captivity in Iraq, posted an Arabic-language message on X (formerly Twitter) expressing sympathy for Gaza residents—on the very day Israel mourned the October 7 Hamas massacre.
In her post, Tsurkov wrote:
“May God grant relief to the residents of Gaza and to the hostages—hungry, wounded, and exhausted. All are paying a heavy price for the decisions of leaders who care only about their survival in power.”
The post drew instant outrage, with hundreds of Israelis accusing her of moral blindness for equating Hamas’s victims with the perpetrators’ population base. Some users told her she “should have been kidnapped again,” while others called her remarks “a desecration of the victims’ memory.”
In response, Tsurkov published another post—again in Arabic—sharing screenshots of the angry replies and lamenting that “Israelis wished I’d be kidnapped again… all because I expressed sympathy for Gazans.” She further claimed that during her captivity, Israeli media coverage of her ordeal was “filled with schadenfreude over the ‘Arab-loving woman’ who was kidnapped.”
Tsurkov’s stance reopened painful wounds just as Israel marked two years since 1,200 people were murdered and more than 150 taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. Many Israelis saw her timing as deeply insensitive, particularly while families still await news of loved ones trapped in Gaza’s tunnels.
Political commentators noted that freedom of speech does not absolve moral accountability. One wrote, “Supporting Gazans on the day Israel buried its children isn’t compassion—it’s cruelty dressed as conscience.”
While Tsurkov insists her views stem from “universal human rights,” the incident has reignited debate in Israel about the fine line between empathy and appeasement—especially toward those whose elected rulers committed one of the bloodiest massacres in Jewish history.
