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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Elizabeth Tsurkov recovering from captivity and torture at hands of Iraqi terrorists

2025-11-12

One feels for the lady’s travails — no one should have to go through any of that viciousness, and all credit to her that she survived.

[IsraelTimes] Kataeb Hezbollah originally kidnapped the researcher hoping to get ransom for her as a foreigner, she says, but started torturing her when they discovered she was Israeli

Ta’aliq — "to hang" in Arabic — is Iraqi slang for a torture technique that hoists victims into the air, their hands handcuffed above their heads. The akrab, or "scorpion," is the more painful version, in which the victims’ hands are handcuffed together behind their backs before they’re hoisted.

Elizabeth Tsurkov experienced both and other excruciating torture during two and a half years held captive in Iraq by an Iranian-backed terrorist organization.

The 38-year-old Israeli-Russian doctoral student at Princeton, who speaks fluent Arabic and has researched the Middle East for over a decade, was studying social political movements in Iraq in March 2023 when she was forced into an SUV, blindfolded, sexually assaulted and beaten, then taken to a torture facility on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Her release in September was announced by US President Donald Trump
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets...
Now she is recovering in Israel as Iraqis head to the polls Tuesday for a parliamentary election that includes candidates linked to the terrorist organization Tsurkov says kidnapped her, Kataib Hezbollah.

A $600 MILLION RANSOM DEMANDED
Israelis are prohibited by law from traveling to Iraq, which Israel classifies as an "enemy country."

In an interview with The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, Tsurkov said she knew the risks but thought she had taken sufficient precautions, entering on her Russian passport and avoiding contact with militias. She hadn’t counted on Kataib Hezbollah’s deep penetration of activist circles in Baghdad.

She said her captors didn’t know she was Israeli at first and believes they kidnapped her to try to get a large ransom for a foreigner. While Kataib Hezbollah has never publicly claimed her kidnapping, it has released social media statements that include fake information she gave during torture, a sign of its involvement.

The group, an ally of Hezbollah in Leb
...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
, is part of a coalition of Iranian-backed militias that are officially part of Iraq’s armed forces but often act on their own. The US has listed Kataib Hezbollah as a terrorist organization since 2009.

A month into Tsurkov’s captivity, her captors found Hebrew messages and other evidence that she was Israeli on her phone. That’s when the torture began, she said, as they accused her of being a spy. Their starting ransom demand was $600 million, she was told by Israeli officials.

"The torture was incredibly brutal," said Tsurkov, now recovering at a friend’s home near Tel Aviv.

"They electrocuted me. They constantly touched me inappropriately. They forced me into positions that were very painful to me because of my herniated" discs, she said, adding she had back surgery just eight days before the kidnapping.

The AP generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse except in cases where they publicly identify themselves or share their stories openly.

Tsurkov’s captors used a plastic whip, especially on her feet, because feet heal slowly. They threatened to kill her with a gun stamped "property of the Iraqi security services." She would pray to pass out to end the torture sessions.

She said she made up false confessions to appease the torturers, careful to avoid implicating Iraqi acquaintances.

After four and a half months, Tsurkov was moved to what she believes is a Kataib Hezbollah base on the border with Iran, where the torture stopped. She was allowed sufficient food and water, and eventually a TV, while kept in solitary confinement in a windowless cell.

Hopes for release plummeted after the October 7, 2023, Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-led attack on southern Israel, when 251 hostages kidnapped to Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
drew Israel’s concern.

SHEDDING LIGHT ON MILITIAS
The torture has left Tsurkov with likely permanent nerve damage. Between doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, she mostly reclines on a couch, shifting positions to try to find relief.

The details of the torture facility are impossible to forget, she said: Splashes of blood on the walls, desperate scrawls of people held in the cell before her. It’s uncomfortable to share them publicly.

"Any human being doesn’t want the details about their worst experiences in their life to be known," Tsurkov said.

Still, she knows that as a Westerner, she is in a unique position to shed light on Iraqi militias. Few people survive Iraq’s torture facilities, and the Iraqis who do are terrified that speaking out could endanger them or their families.

Iraqi militias are not as familiar globally because they are mostly active inside Iraq. Iraqi militias targeted US forces in the region after the October 7 attack because of Washington’s support for Israel, but thon the lamly stopped after a US retaliatory attack killed a high-ranking Kataib Hezbollah commander.

"Their focus is overwhelmingly just oppressing their own people," Tsurkov said.

She knew the militia was well-funded, she said, because of the plush leather and new-car smell of the luxury vehicles that transported her blindfolded.

SUFFERING A THIRD-GENERATION INCARCERATION
Tsurkov, who was born in Russia, moved to Israel around age 4. Before that, her parents were imprisoned in Russia for opposing the communist government.

Her mother was incarcerated for three years, her father for seven plus two years of hard labor in Siberia. For a few months, Tsurkov’s father was held in a cell with former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who later became an Israeli cabinet minister. Her grandfather was imprisoned under Stalin.

Tsurkov’s family fought for her release, launching a campaign focused mostly on the US. Her sister, Emma Tsurkov, is married to a US citizen.

Israel also invested "great efforts and many resources" to help secure Tsurkov’s release, said an Israeli official who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

And yet she pointedly did not thank Israel afterward. Classy.

The Russian Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to an AP request for comment.

US EXERTS PRESSURE
As far as she knows, Tsurkov was not exchanged for any prisoners.

Her release followed significant pressure from Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s special envoy for hostage affairs, who held multiple meetings and regularly took to social media to demand Tsurkov’s freedom.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that with Tsurkov’s Princeton enrollment and other ties to the US, Trump "was willing to leverage our country’s strength and his negotiating skills to intervene."

Tsurkov also credits the involvement of an Iraqi-American businessman and Trump donor, Mark Savaya. As she was recuperating in Israel, Tsurkov said Savaya told her he had warned Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudan
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
i during a meeting to release her or the Trump administration would attack Kataib Hezbollah. Savaya was later named the US special envoy for Iraq.

Tsurkov’s release came after Israel decimated many of Iran’s proxies and hit Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
hard during a devastating 12-day war in June, a campaign so intense that Tsurkov said she felt the building shake where she was held over the border in Iraq.

The Iraqi government and Kataib Hezbollah did not respond to AP requests for comment. But militia security chief Abu Ali al-Askari wrote on Telegram that the Iraqi government demanded Tsurkov’s release to avoid a possible strike against Iraq.

A Shiite political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the group’s leaders worried they would be targeted by the US.

About a week after Tsurkov believes Savaya met with al-Sudani, she was brought to Baghdad and handed over to an Iraqi security official in a nondescript garage.

At the US Embassy, she had an ecstatic video chat with her family before returning to Israel.

REBUILDING A LIFE
Before her kidnapping, Tsurkov was frequently quoted in Israeli media for her expertise on the Syrian civil war. She traveled twice to Syria and has tattoos supporting the Syrian uprising, which she said angered her torturers. She has been vocal in her criticism of the Israeli government and supportive of Paleostinians, prompting online vitriol since her release.

Now she is rebuilding her life. She plans to finish her doctorate at Princeton. She is overjoyed to experience small things like seeing the sea or feeling the sun warm her skin.

Once she has healed enough, she hopes to return to research, especially field work highlighting marginalized groups.

Horrible as it is, some people cannot be protected from themselves.

"It often feels like a nightmare that I woke up from," she said. "It feels so surreal to have undergone and overcome such brutality."

Posted by:trailing wife

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