A former Israeli hostage Noa Argamani has publicly spoken and criticised the Israeli media for representing her experiences of her captivity falsely and rhetorically.
Speaking to the media, Argamani downplayed some of the accusations levelled against Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group. She stated that Israeli media outlets misinterpreted her testimony, claiming she had been beaten and had her hair cut while in captivity in Gaza.
After her release from Gaza in June this year several media channels, particularly Israeli outlets, had reported that Argamani had said that her hair was cut by her captors and that she was beaten or hit all over her body.
She claimed that her actual words were as follows, “This weekend, after the shooting, as I said, I had cuts all over my head, and hit my whole body. However, I want to stress they (Hamas) never actually hit me”. While she narrated how a building fell on her after an Israeli airstrike, she stressed that was the cause of her plight and not the Hamas.
Argamani came out to speak in response to the Israeli who misquoted her during a meeting she had with G7 diplomats in Tokyo.
She declared her desire not to be a victim again, not by the media stating, “As a victim of October 7, I will not allow any media to mispresent my story and make me a victim again”.
On June 8, the Israeli army managed to free four captives from the Hamas group, including Argamani, in a special operation in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. Currently, there are over 100 Israeli hostages in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to no longer be alive due to Israelis’ relentless airstrikes, according to Israeli public broadcaster, KAN.
According to local health authorities, Israel has killed over 40,200 Palestinian deaths, mostly women and children, and over 93,000 injuries since October 7.
