After two and a half years of being held captive in Iraq by a pro-Iranian Shiite militia group, Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov has returned back home to Israel. After a U.S.-led diplomatic rescue, she is now recovering at Sheba Hospital.

Ramat Gan

Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian academic, has returned to Israel after spending more than two years in captivity in Iraq, where she was held by a pro-Iranian Shiite militia. Her release was facilitated by a U.S.-led diplomatic effort, with reports suggesting that concerns over potential U.S. sanctions and regional security threats contributed to her release.

Tsurkov is currently recovering at Sheba Hospital, receiving both medical and psychological support. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed gratitude to the U.S. administration for its role in securing her release. Details of the release indicate it was part of a complex regional understanding, with the Iraqi government reportedly motivated by the threat of sanctions and military action.

Elizabeth Tsurkov returns to Israel two years after Iraqi captivity

After two-and-a-half years of being held captive in Iraq by a pro-Iranian Shiite militia group, Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Cherkof has returned back home to Israel after a U.S.-led diplomatic rescue. She is now recovering at Sheba Hospital, undergoing similar testing to that of the returned hostages from Gaza. Here's more from I-24 News correspondent Balir Sledin. Today we've seen the first images and videos of Cherkof after her release from captivity in Iraq, and here we can see that she's actually limping and not even able to walk by herself. Maybe that's because of her back pain that she suffered from even before her time in captivity, but definitely two-and-a-half years in Iraq in these conditions didn't help and even worsened her situation. But definitely the teams here are well-prepared and they are conducting all the medical examinations that she needs and definitely giving her all the psychological support that she needs as well. Prime Minister Netanyahu today said that he spoke with Elizabeth after her release and thanked the Trump administration for their effort to secure her release, and also Galhersh, the one who's responsible from the Israeli side for the issue of the hostages from the Israeli army, and definitely said that he is working to release all the Israeli hostages that are still held in Hamas's captivity. Now we have a few more details about the deal of her release. According to some sources that spoke with Al-Akhbar, the newspaper in Lebanon that is close to Hezbollah, apparently that was part of a complex understanding for the situation in the region. According to that source, apparently this comes amidst threats from Israel to hit 26 targets in Iraq, and in order to avoid that, they wanted to continue with this release and release Tsurkov. And also, other note here, we know that President Trump in the past few days did sign an executive order that allows the Secretary of State to actually sanction governments and countries over what it has been described as arbitrary arrest and unlawful kidnapping. Apparently the Iraqi government feared that they could be sanctioned actually by the United States, and that's why they have worked to release Elizabeth Tsurkov. But it took a lot, a lot of time, of course. We've seen Adam Boehler speaking about this over the past year or so, and definitely the prime minister of Iraq, Mohammad Shaya'i al-Sudani, wasn't helpful enough. But recently apparently the militia that held Tsurkov did understand that this is the only option that they have, and they agreed to release her. And here she is here at Sheba Hospital for now. Maybe she will be released by next week, if everything goes according to what the medical staff here expects to go.

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