The New York Times reports:

They handcuffed her, hung her up from the ceiling and beat her senseless. They shocked her with electricity and forced her into positions that injured her back and shoulders. When she lost consciousness, they threw water on her face to wake her so the torture could resume.

Elizabeth Tsurkov endured two and a half years of captivity in Iraq, held in solitary confinement by an Iran-backed militia. Ms. Tsurkov, 38, said it was a marathon of psychological torment, but the most excruciating were the first months, when she suffered beating after beating by her captors, as well as sexual assault and other horrors.

“They whipped me all over,” she said in her first interview since being freed in September. “They basically used me as a punching bag.”

Barely able to sit up because of her injuries, Ms. Tsurkov, an Israeli Russian doctoral student at Princeton University, spoke while lying down in a friend’s home, the occasional jolt of pain forcing her to shift positions. During hours of interviews with The New York Times, she shared in mostly calm tones, sometimes interrupted by tears, the harrowing story of her kidnapping, captivity and release.

Ms. Tsurkov said she was held by Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the Shiite, Iran-backed paramilitary groups that hold sway in Iraq. She said she had decided to share her story to give voice to Iraqis who have been tortured by the group.

Her experience speaks to how freely Kataib Hezbollah, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, has been able to operate in Iraq. While thousands of the militia’s members draw salaries from the Iraqi state, the government has little, if any, influence over its activities.

Ms. Tsurkov’s personal account of her captivity is consistent with what she told the doctor at Sheba Medical Center in Israel who treated her after her release and who said that she had suffered nerve damage that might be permanent. Her medical records, reviewed by The Times, also detail extensive injuries related to torture, saying she needs “long-term physical and psychological rehabilitation” in light of the “severe damages and complex trauma.”

U.S. and Israeli officials confirm that Kataib Hezbollah kidnapped and tortured her, though they do not know all the details. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

After her release, Kataib, in a statement, claimed knowledge of her captivity and shared details that she had provided in forced confessions, suggesting the group had held her. The militia declined to respond to a detailed inquiry.

The Iraqi prime minister’s office said that it was “committed to holding accountable any party or individual involved in acts of kidnapping or torture.”

Like many other hostages, her fate would quickly turn under diplomatic pressure, with the Trump administration proving instrumental. The administration pressed top Iraqi officials about her case, dispatching envoys to Baghdad to demand progress. A businessman and friend of President Trump, Mark Savaya, who had played a crucial role and would soon become the special envoy to Iraq, accompanied her on a flight to Cyprus, where she was transferred to Israeli military aircraft to take her home.

“I genuinely believe I would have died if they had not engaged so consistently and with such incredible determination,” Ms. Tsurkov said.

Ms. Tsurkov’s decision to enter Iraq was unusual for an Israeli, and risky.

Israel and Iraq are hostile nations with no diplomatic relations. Much of Iraq’s leadership is close to Iran, Israel’s bitter enemy.

But Ms. Tsurkov had gone to Iraq several times, researching the Shiite movement led by the influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. She always took precautions, she said: traveling on her Russian passport, presenting herself as Russian and avoiding contact with armed groups.

On March 21, 2023, Ms. Tsurkov planned to meet a woman at a coffee shop at about 9 p.m. in central Baghdad. The woman had introduced herself over WhatsApp, asking for help researching the Islamic State and saying they had a mutual friend.

The woman did not show up. In retrospect, Ms. Tsurkov thought the appointment was a setup.

As she walked home, a black S.U.V. pulled up next to her and several men forced her into the back seat. She said she had called out for help and tried to escape, but the kidnappers responded by beating and sexually assaulting her. (The Times agreed not to disclose the specifics of her sexual assault.)

“They started twisting my pinkie, almost breaking it,” she said. “So I thought resisting more was pointless.”

As they drove, the kidnappers zip-tied her hands, placed a bag on her head and took her phone. They stopped and forced her into the trunk of a car. Roughly half an hour after her abduction, they arrived at a big house.

She would spend the next four and a half months there, in a windowless room with two cameras, underfed and alone.

At first, her kidnappers were unaware she was Israeli, and it seemed they had abducted her for a ransom, she said. A month into her captivity, her situation deteriorated, when they found proof of her Israeli identity on her phone. They accused her of being an Israeli spy, which she and Israeli officials who spoke to The Times have flatly denied.

She pleaded with them to read her many posts and articles online supporting Palestinian rights and criticizing the Israeli government. But they were unconvinced.

When she did not confess, she said she was “strung up and tortured.” [Continue reading…]