Former hostage Ada Sagi to BBC: I understand Hamas doesn't want peace

Peace activist and former hostage Ada Sagi, 75, told the BBC that since being held hostage in Gaza, she has lost hope that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is possible.

Ada Sagi, 75, is a mother of three and the daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland. Ada learned Arabic in order to make friends with her neighbors close to Kibbutz Nir Oz and began teaching Arabic to fellow residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz in an effort to better communicate with their Palestinian neighbors.

Her son Noam said that he last heard from his mother at 9:20 a.m. on October 7, when his mother called to say she could hear voices speaking in Arabic outside her home, after which she entered the safe room. She was then abducted to Gaza.

In her first interview since her release, Sagi told Emma Barnett on Radio 4’s Today program that she was held in an apartment by paid guards, that Hamas kept her in a hospital just before her release, and that she now believes the world hates Jews.

“I don’t believe in peace, I don’t, sorry,” Sagi told BBC. “I understand Hamas doesn’t want it,” she added.

She said she is well aware of the remaining 120 hostages in Gaza and urged the government to agree to a new ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, the BBC reported.

Captive in a home with children

Sagi revealed that when she was first taken into Gaza, she and some other hostages were hidden in a family home with children but were taken to an apartment in Khan Yunis the next day because it was too “dangerous.”

The person who held her in their apartment in Gaza was a nurse, she told the BBC, and his wife and children had been sent to stay with his wife’s parents, Sagi recalled.

Sagi shared that she overheard students being paid 70 NIS to watch over them. “It’s a lot of money in Gaza because they have no work. And if you have work other than with Hamas, it’s no more than 20 NIS for a day,” she said.

Sagi was released in November as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange deal. She said that on that day, she was terrified. On the 49th day of her captivity, Sagi recalled that she and her fellow hostages were told, “You are going home,” which she said she did not believe.

“At lunchtime, they gave us food… they take us by car to Khan Yunis, and we go [un]til the border of Rafah.” They then abruptly returned to Khan Yunis.

When she arrived in Khan Yunis, Sagi recalled that they were taken to a hospital, she believes was Nasser Hospital, and were told, “You are staying here.”

From other testimony of released hostages, 10 hostages in total were placed in Nasser Hospital, one of whom remains in captivity, according to the BBC.

The hospital’s director, Dr. Atef al-Hoot, denied these claims that there were any hostages held in Nasser Hospital, according to the BBC.

“People say that they are not involved. They’re involved… and getting money for each of us,” Sagi said.

During a raid on Nasser Hospital in February, the IDF said that it detained approximately 200 terrorists inside the hospital and found ammunition as well as unused medicine designated for hostages.

Following her release, Sagi is living in an apartment in Kiryat Gat with other kibbutz residents.

She is writing a book and working with children with ADHD. She also continues to talk about her experience in Gaza.

“I lost my home. I lost my freedom – the place where I [have] to return. Our village – kibbutz – is destroyed,” she said.

“I cried good. I’m not an ‘Iron Woman,’ like everybody says. Sometimes, you cry, and it’s good. My mother would say: ‘To cry, it cleans the eye.’”

The Israel-Hamas war began on October 7 when Hamas launched an attack, in which thousands of terrorists infiltrated from the Gaza border and took more than 240 hostages into the Gaza Strip. 

During the massacre, more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, including over 350 in the Re'im music festival and hundreds of Israeli civilians across the Gaza border communities.

120 hostages still remain in Gaza captivity.