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Israeli woman claims her Hamas captor proposed to her with a ring: ‘Stay here with me, have my children’
The Hamas militant even reunited the Israeli woman with her kidnapped mother to ask for her hand in marriage.
A woman who was kept hostage for 50 days by Hamas and was later released in a deal last year claimed that one of the captors proposed to her with a ring. He also told her she would stay in Gaza forever and raise his children. Additionally, he reunited her with her mother to ask for her hand in marriage.
Noga Weiss, 18, recounted this incident during an interview. “He gave me a ring on day 14 [in captivity], and I stayed with him until day 50. He told me, ‘Everyone will be released, but you will stay here with me and have my children,’” The Times of Israel quoted Noga as saying to Channel 12.
When she was asked how she responded to the proposal, Noga said that she laughed to save her life: “I pretended to laugh so he wouldn’t shoot me in the head.”
The outlet further reported that Noga initially tried to reject the proposal politely. However, she yelled at her captor when it didn’t work out.
Father killed, mother and daughter kidnapped
On October 7, when Hamas invaded Israel, Noga’s father, Ilan, 56, went out at 7:15 am to join the emergency squad in their area Kibbutz Be’eri. However, he never returned. He was killed during the invasion, and his body was taken to Gaza.
Her mother, Shiri, 53, told Noga to hide under the bed when the Hamas militants started shooting at their door. When they entered the room, they took Shiri with them.
“I went under the bed, and they came in and took her. After they took her outside, I heard gunshots. I thought she was murdered and not kidnapped,” Noga recalled, adding that she was relieved after knowing that her mother was “alive” and that she wasn’t “alone”.
During the Hamas takeover, Noga’s two sisters, Meytal (26) and Ma’ayan (23), were living in separate student apartments in different parts of Be’eri. They communicated with their family via WhatsApp and were rescued from the safe rooms by IDF soldiers after 12 hours.
Since the militants were setting houses on fire, IDF soldiers instructed Noga to evacuate. Despite her efforts to hide, she was eventually discovered and taken hostage.
“Something like 40 terrorists surrounded me with Kalashnikovs. They tied my hands behind my back. As they took me away, I saw the bodies of people I knew from the kibbutz. A few minutes later, they put me in a car and started driving,” The Times of Israel quoted Noga as saying to Channel 12.
Throughout her captivity, she was kept in different houses. Whenever she was transferred from one location to another, she was compelled to wear a hijab and instructed to hold the hand of her captor so that people would assume that they were married.
