A report in US media has detailed the harrowing account of Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov’s two-and-a-half-year captivity in Iraq, revealing extensive torture, sexual assault and psychological abuse at the hands of the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah.
"They whipped me all over," Tsurkov told the The New York Times in her first interview since being freed in September. "They basically used me as a punching bag."
Tsurkov, a 38-year-old Israeli-Russian doctoral student at Princeton University, said she was abducted in Baghdad in March 2023 and spent more than 900 days in captivity. For months, she said, she was hung from the ceiling, beaten until she lost consciousness, and subjected to electric shocks and sexual assault.
Her account is supported by medical records reviewed by the Times, which detail severe injuries "related to torture" and recommend "long-term physical and psychological rehabilitation".
Tsurkov identified her captors as Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shia paramilitary factions, backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organisation by the United States. While thousands of the group’s members are on the Iraqi state payroll, Baghdad exerts little control over its actions.
She said her ordeal began after she went to meet a woman in a Baghdad cafe as part of her research on militias associated with Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The meeting was a setup. As she walked home, men forced her into a car, assaulted her and took her to a safe house. There, she was interrogated and accused of being an Israeli spy - a charge she and Israeli officials have denied.
Tsurkov has previously expressed support for the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, as well as Syrians persecuted by the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad.
When she refused to confess, Tsurkov said she was "strung up and tortured". She eventually fabricated admissions to stop the beatings. "This tooth is missing because of that," she said, pointing to a gap in her mouth.
The Times reported that her conditions changed dramatically after she was moved to another location in mid-2023. The change came, she said, "by the grace of God".
Her new captors did not torture her and brought in a male nurse to attend to her. They also brought her books, notebooks, a television and an Arabic thesaurus.
It was during this phase that a commander told her it was "haram", or forbidden, to hit women. Despite the relative improvement, she remained in solitary confinement for over two years. "I never saw the sun", she told the Times.
Tsurkov said she decided to speak out to "give voice to Iraqis who have been tortured by the group".
The New York Times reported that both US and Israeli officials confirmed Kataib Hezbollah’s role in her abduction, though many details remain unclear. The Iraqi prime minister’s office said it was "committed to holding accountable any party or individual involved in acts of kidnapping or torture".
Her release in September came after what the New York Times described as "complex diplomatic and humanitarian efforts".
The report said the Trump administration pressed Iraqi officials and sent envoys to Baghdad to demand progress. A businessman and associate of Donald Trump, Mark Savaya, who later became the US special envoy to Iraq, accompanied her on the flight to Cyprus, where she was transferred to Israeli military aircraft.
"I genuinely believe I would have died if they had not engaged so consistently and with such incredible determination," Tsurkov said.
After more than 900 days in captivity, she was freed on 9 September, and returned to Israel for treatment. "I asked her, 'Are you alive? Because I buried you so many times in my head,'" her sister Emma told the Times. "She said she was OK, but she would need medical care."
Tsurkov continues to recover, still suffering pain from her injuries but determined to speak publicly about what she endured - and about the many Iraqis whose suffering, she said, "goes unheard".