Israeli Woman, a Former Hostage of Hamas, Detained at JFK Airport by American ICE Agents Convinced She Was Still in Captivity

An Israeli former Hamas hostage was briefly detained by American immigration officials at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport last week after a computer system incorrectly listed her as having not yet been released from Gaza. The former soldier’s father said the situation was “unpleasant,” but understandable. The woman in question, Liri Albag, spent 477 days being held hostage by Hamas at Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attacks. At the time of her capture, Ms. Albag had been serving in the Israeli Defense Forces as a lookout at the Nahal Oz military base, situated just about eight miles from the Gaza border. The airport detention mix-up was first reported by the Israeli television station Channel 12. Ms. Albag was traveling to the United States for a vacation with some of her friends. When she landed at the airport, she was detained for an hour by immigration officials whose systems had not yet been updated to confirm that she was no longer being held in captivity. Officials were concerned that she was being impersonated. “There was questioning, but everything is fine,” Ms. Albag’s father, Eli Albag, told Ynetnews. “Their system still showed her as a hostage. They hadn’t updated the records. It’s just a vacation. Liri wasn’t stressed. It was unpleasant, but it passed.”Ms. Albag was released by Hamas in February as part of a cease-fire agreement mediated by the government of Qatar. She was released alongside five others before the broader cease-fire fell apart. “The truth is that October 7 feels like one long nightmare, and I’ve been waiting for someone to wake me up, for someone to tell me I was dreaming,” Ms. Albag told Channel 12 in her first sit-down interview after being released as part of the cease-fire agreement earlier this year. “But that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, this has all been real.”“They told us, ‘If you listen to us, we won’t kill you. You’re coming with us to Gaza.’ And we told them, ‘Yes, take us to Gaza’ because we were simply afraid,” Ms. Albag said. “I think it was totally instinctual.”

Israeli Woman, a Former Hostage of Hamas, Detained at JFK Airport by American ICE Agents Convinced She Was Still in Captivity

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