The Hamas terrorist organization is paying Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip up to 70 shekels ($19) a day to watch over Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7, a freed captive said on Sunday.
Ada Sagi, 75, was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led invasion and was held in a family home in Gaza until she was released as part of the hostage-for-ceasefire deal on Nov. 28.
Asked on Sunday by Israel’s Channel 12 News what would motivate a Gaza family with children to imprison Jews, Sagi said: “Money.”
“I asked the owner of the apartment twice; he and the children looked after us. I saw that the apartment owner was receiving Israeli cash,” she said. “He was pleased the day that Elad Katzir came to us, after 33 days, because I understood he received [payment] per capita.”
Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists murdered Katzir in mid-January. His remains were retrieved from Gaza in an IDF raid on April 5.
Sagi recalled an exchange with her captor. “He said: ‘I want a better future for my children and wife. I want to buy visas and not stay here; I want to go to Europe.’ He said: ‘I am uninvolved.’ I said: ‘How do you mean uninvolved if you took my freedom and I’m sitting here in your apartment?'”
According to the former captive, Palestinians who also work receive 20 shekels ($5) a day to guard the hostages, while unemployed students get a daily payment of 70 shekels ($19) from the terrorist organization for. doing the same.
Sagi told Channel 12 that the youth she encountered during her 52 days in Gaza were “thrilled to go to their parents and bring them the money.”
In December, Mia Shem, who was released by Hamas two days after Sagi, opened up to Israel’s Channel 13 News about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Palestinian “noncombatants” in the enclave.
“I went through a Shoah [Holocaust],” the Israeli-French dual citizen told the broadcaster, adding, “Everyone there [in Gaza] is a terrorist.”
“Entire families are behind Hamas. I realized I was staying with a family. I started to ask myself, why am I in a family home? Why are there children here? Why is there a wife here?” Shem said.
“It’s important to me to reveal the truth about the people who live in Gaza, about who they really are,” she said.
