‘Jimmy Quinn
National Review, June 24, 2024
“One of the abductees, held for nearly 50 days in an attic, reveals he was held by a UNRWA teacher — a father of ten children.”
An 84-year-old Israeli woman held hostage and deprived of her diabetes medicine allegedly by a U.N. teacher in Gaza broke her silence about the ordeal today, months after officials with the teacher’s agency tried to kill a story about its connection to the 10/7 attacks.
Her testimony was included in a landmark lawsuit filed this morning in federal court in the Southern District of New York against the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. She’s among a group of more than 100 victims of the October 7 terrorist attacks — including other former hostages, the wounded, families of the dead, and hostage families — suing UNRWA and several of its current and former leaders.
The woman, Ditza Heiman, told the story of her abduction from the Nir Oz kibbutz and 53 days in Hamas captivity under the watch of an UNRWA teacher, until her release as part of a temporary cease-fire deal last year.
“UNRWA knew it was hiring terrorists and that its funds and facilities were being used for violence, but UNRWA’s complicity in paying and empowering terrorists to teach and radicalize a generation of Gaza’s children was perhaps even more evil and tragic,” Heiman said in a press release that announced the lawsuit. Several of her children and siblings are also plaintiffs in the case.
[To read the full article, click here]