BEATEN BUT UNBOWED

Frail hostage, 85, leaves Hamas prison & wishes peace on captor

- JERRY LAWTON

AN elderly woman held hostage by Hamas said she "went through hell" - but she wished her captors "peace" when they let her go.

Frail Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, was snatched by gunmen from her kibbutz home in Israel and beaten. She was held in a "spiderweb" of tunnels beneath Gaza for 16 days.

As she left, wheelchair-user Yocheved turned to one of the gunmen, shook his hand and offered him the blessing: "Shalom."

The gesture of harmony was hailed as a beacon of hope after Hamas's October 7 gun and rocket attack killed 1,400. It sparked a war that has since claimed 5,000 more lives.