An Israeli woman, Elizabeth Tsurkov, has opened up about the harrowing ordeal she faced during her two-and-a-half years as a hostage in Iran. She recounted the severe sexual abuse and torture she suffered at the hands of her captors.

Tsurkov, aged 38, was subjected to brutal treatment by members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States. The torment began almost immediately after her abduction in 2023, with her captors mercilessly whipping her.

“They basically used me as a punching bag,” Tsurkov shared in an interview with the New York Times, describing the relentless abuse she endured.

A doctoral candidate at Princeton University, Tsurkov was abducted in March 2023. She had been lured to a Baghdad coffee shop under the pretense of meeting a woman who claimed to assist in her research on ISIS.

Tsurkov, who was in Iraq to study the Shiite movement, agreed to the meeting after the woman mentioned a shared acquaintance.

However, the meeting was a setup. The woman never appeared, and as Tsurkov made her way home, she was forcibly taken by several men driving a black SUV.

Though she desperately called out for help and tried to escape, her kidnappers beat and sexually assaulted her: ‘They started twisting my pinkie, almost breaking it. So I thought resisting more was pointless’.

Upon arriving at a large house with her head in a bag and her hands zip-tied together, she was taken to a windowless room with two cameras – her home for the next four-and-a-half months. 

Elizabeth Tsurkov (pictured), a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in March 2023

She was kidnapped by members of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia that has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US (File image of Kata’ib Hezbollah fighters) 

When her captors realised she was from Israel, the Kata’ib Hezbollah terrorists believed she was a spy and refused to believe her despite her insistence that she was hugely supportive of Palestinian rights and critical of the Israeli government. 

She refused to confess to the lie of her being a spy, and as a result she was ‘strung up and tortured’.

Elizabeth quickly began making up confessions, she said, which led to her captors allowing her to eat and rest. 

But the sexual assault continued, with one man known as the ‘colonel’ groping her and threatening her with rape. She said of him: ‘He was very filthy and very obsessed with sex’.

The terrorists continued to threaten her with more sexual abuse, but didn’t follow through with them, she said. 

It took several months for the Israeli government to recognise her as hostage, and a further few months for the Iraqi government to prove she was alive. 

In a video that aired on Iraqi TV in November 2023, she was made to say she worked for the CIA and Israeli intelligence. 

But she used coded messages to reveal the cruelty of her treatment. 

In a video that aired on Iraqi TV in November 2023, she was made to say she worked for the CIA and Israeli intelligence

Kata’ib Hezbollah Iraqi militia gather ahead of the funeral of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport, in Baghdad, Iraq, January 4, 2020

Members of an Iraqi Shiite militant group attend the funeral of a fighter with the Kata’ib Hezbollah, who was killed in a US airstrike, in Baghdad, Iraq,  January 25 2024

To indicate she had been electrocuted, she lied and said she lived in the Gan HaHashmal neighbourhood. ‘Hashmal’ is the Hebrew word for electricity. 

And she invented named for her supposed handlers, claiming that she worked with a man called ‘Ethan Numia’. ‘Inuim’ is the Hebrew word for torture. 

She was eventually freed in early September, with little warning. Driven out of the base while blindfolded, she found herself in a Baghdad garage. 

There, an Iraqi official said she was now safe. She was then taken to a home and looked after by female doctors – the first women she had seen for several years. 

Israel had reportedly asked America to help get Elizabeth back. Adam Boehler, an American hostage envoy known for his work with the hostages in Gaza, campaigned to get her back. 

And Mark Savaya, a businessman and friend of Donald Trump, is also said to have played a role in her her release. 

A White House spokesperson did not confirm Savaya’s role in the freeing of Elizabeth, instead telling the New York Times that Trump ‘is always concerned about Americans detained abroad’ and that he was ‘willing to leverage our country’s strength and his negotiating skills to intervene in this case.’

Following her release, a spokesperson for Kata’ib Hezbollah did not admit to kidnapping Elizabeth, but claimed in a statement on Telegram that she had made several ‘confessions’ to being a spy and identified the fake ‘Ethan Nuima’ as her handler.