Interview “Krone” – “The kidnapped girl is my daughter”

Ayelet Levy Shachar has been going through hell for eight months. Her daughter Naama was attacked along with other girls by Hamas attackers and kidnapped in her pajamas during the October 7 attacks. A new video shows the bloodied girls pleading for their lives and being humiliated by their captors. Their families decided to release the footage to show the world what the Gaza offensive is about. In an interview with ‘Krone’, Naama’s mother talks about the worst day of her life – and explains what she hopes to achieve from the negotiations for her daughter’s life.

Kronen Zeitung: Mrs. Levy Shachar, can you describe what you felt when you saw the new images of your daughter’s kidnapping a few weeks ago?
Levy Shachar: In early April we received the three-minute recordings from the Israeli army. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her. One of the other mothers, who had already seen the video, came to sit with me and we watched the images together.

Naama’s mother Ayelet on the first time she saw the video:

How did you feel about it?
It was important for me to see that. The girls are in the middle of a terrorist attack, but they are strong. I said to myself, “This is my Naama!” She was so close, so real. Bloodied and bruised, but she spoke, it was her. I haven’t heard her talk in so long. And I was proud of her, of her strength. At the same time, I hated the men surrounding her. It was very difficult to watch. But I have also been able to draw strength from it.

What kind of personality does your daughter have? Is she quiet and reserved, is she very robust, how would you describe her?
My Naama is silent. More introverted. But also very stubborn. She focused a lot on her sports in high school and was very punctual. But never someone who wanted to be the center of attention.

Do you remember the last time you spoke to her?
That was the night before the attacks, a Friday. She had recently arrived at the Nahal Oz base from which she had been kidnapped the day before. She had only just made a bed there. I wanted to come visit her the next day. She couldn’t talk for long on the phone, she just asked me to bring some T-shirts and especially food (laughs). The next day, shortly before seven in the morning, we wrote again.

What was in the news?
I asked her what was going on, because about an hour’s drive from us the sirens were also going off. She only wrote back that she and the others were in a bunker. And I’ve never heard from my daughter since.

Did she know the other girls she was with?
She met her a few weeks earlier at the start of her military service and immediately became very good friends with a comrade. One of the group was killed right next to them.

When you last wrote to your daughter, did you feel a sense of dread? Did you have the feeling that something very serious was happening?
No, not at all at that moment. No one knew what happened at seven in the morning. I then played Monopoly with my sons and it wasn’t until half past nine that I received a call from Naama’s father. He has already received the first video of Naama in a Telegram group, showing her being pulled out of the Hamas kidnappers’ car. That was the moment my world completely turned around. Everything has changed since then.

Naama’s mother remembers October 7:

How has this changed your life?
The first few weeks I was in shock. I didn’t do much, people kept coming by. After a while I started working again, I am a general practitioner and thought: I am needed. Moreover, I wanted to do something, I was completely restless. I now work three times a week and I have stopped a few other things. Everything has changed, I now live with this chronic pain.

Do you know anything about your daughter’s kidnappers? Who are they, are they still alive or something like that?
No.

Would you like to know?
Don’t know. In the first video there is a terrorist, a terrible monster, holding my daughter and shooting her into the air. I’d like to know if they caught him. Some of the terrorists are probably dead. My daughter’s videos come from cameras mounted on the bodies of Hamas attackers. I assume the military took them and got the material that way.

What are you hoping for now? On an army liberation mission? Or negotiations?
I want my daughter back. And I hope for negotiations, because a hostage rescue mission would be far too risky. This is a terrorist attack that is still ongoing until now. I’m afraid Israel will have to negotiate with these criminals.

Naama’s mother on the decision to release the video:

Was it a difficult decision to release your daughter’s new video?
We parents were shown the army video because we were entitled to it. We didn’t want to publish it at first because our girls are shown in very difficult and humiliating moments. But at some point we became frustrated because there was no negotiation and we wanted to remind the government and the public that our girls are still being held hostage. You should see their faces, their eyes. These are young girls, kidnapped in their pajamas, completely helpless, doing everything they can to stay alive. And that’s what the world should see.

Do you already have your daughter’s return in mind? What do you say to her, what do you do with her first?
I think about that all the time. I’m planning all the time, I’m constantly talking to her in my head. I try to imagine what she would want. She has been through so much, maybe she has changed too. I don’t even know what to expect when she comes back. I know my Naama, she would probably need her space. Her privacy, and her mother and father to process it all. My plan is to just listen to her about what she needs and live from one day to the next. Sometimes I just want to sit in the car with her and sing like we always did. Or go back to the sea and watch the waves. Cooking her something to eat, all the normal things we did together every day. And then I also have big plans, I want to see the whole world with her and travel a lot.

Where to?
We even went to Austria with her once, to Salzburg and Vienna. In Salzburg we did this whole ‘Sound of Music’ thing. I recently looked at the photos from back then, everything was so perfect. I want the weather to be perfect.