Professor Ruhama Albag, aunt of released hostage Liri Albag, on Friday spoke about her unique meeting with Liri and the other female IDF soldiers who were recently freed from captivity.
In an interview with the "Behetzi Hayom" program, Prof. Albag said that on Liri's birthday, the former hostages reached out to her and told her that they had heard an interview she gave on Kan Reshet Bet on the eve of Shavuot 2024.
"Agam Berger said to me, 'Are you the professor? I didn't imagine you this way,'" she shared emotionally. "My sweet Liri whispered in my ear, 'When I heard you, you gave me so much strength.'"
The testimonies also revealed that Hamas allowed the hostages to listen to the radio for two hours a day, and specifically to Kan Reshet Bet.
"They were in a situation where they were all together, only Naama was not with them," Prof. Albag said. "Naama heard the broadcast from another location and wrote them a note, 'I heard Liri's aunt speaking about the holiday of Shavuot.'"
In that interview on the eve of Shavuot, Prof. Albag spoke about the special significance of the holiday for Liri and her family, and that the family would not celebrate until she came home.
"It gave them a sort of security," she estimated. "I said that we would not celebrate holidays until Liri came home. There was solidarity there."
Prof. Albag also said that the girls remembered all the details of the interview, even though seven months had passed since she gave it
"They really hung onto every drop of information, every sentence that reached them about our lives outside of Gaza," she said. "The terrorists tried to demoralize them, they told them, 'No one is worrying about you, no one cares about you.' But precisely these broadcasts, which their captors did not understand because they did not speak Hebrew, were what gave them strength."