Doctoral student held hostage for years in Iraq shares her harrowing story after release

Amna Nawaz:

Now, a journey to freedom after more than 900 days in captivity.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli doctoral student at Princeton University, was conducting research in Baghdad in 2023 when she was kidnapped and held by an Iran-linked militia for more than 2.5 years. Her release last September followed a high-stakes international push.

We sat down recently for her first American television interview.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, welcome to the "News Hour." It's so good to see you here in person.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, Released Hostage:

Thank you so much for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

So, first and most importantly, you've been free for just a few months now. How are you? How are you feeling? How are you doing?

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Well, mentally, I feel I'm well. Obviously, I'm in therapy, but I'm well. And I'm happy to be alive. And I appreciate things about life that I previously took for granted, like having windows in the room and being able to see what's outside and the sun and enjoying its warmth, not here in D.C., but in theory, in general.

(Laughter)

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

And being with my loved ones and being able to say what I want and read what I want, and freedom is truly something you don't appreciate until you lose it. And I didn't appreciate it.

Physically, I'm not great because of the torture. All my joints are damaged. Now, sitting, the knee hurts. on top of that during the torture, Kataib Hezbollah, the militants who kidnapped me, herniated two discs in my back. So I'm sitting now with a belt to kind of hold it in to prevent the pain.

And a lot of the time, I'm -- basically at home, I kind of half-lie, half-sit. It's still a struggle.

Amna Nawaz:

You wrote an essay detailing your experience.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

And you titled it "I Was Kidnapped By Idiots" about your treatment and your torture while you were kidnapped and held hostage.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

You said that, after they discovered you were Israeli, the treatment changed.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

How so?

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Basically, I was kidnapped for ransom as a foreigner, not as an Israeli.

Amna Nawaz:

They thought, this is a moneymaking exercise by grabbing you.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Exactly.

And even after they realized that I'm Israeli, it remained very much about money for them. They genuinely believed the confessions that they extracted under torture, that I'm a double CIA and Mossad spy. Before that, they would starve me. They -- the kidnapping itself was extremely violent.

But other than that, the interrogations did not involve violence. But afterwards it became basically the rule is that I'm getting tortured, being strung up to the ceiling while handcuffed, either with hands above my head or hands behind my back, and being pummeled, beaten, electrocuted, put into painful positions.

And this is what caused the damage to the nerves and damage to my joints and my back.

Amna Nawaz:

Elizabeth, for you to sit here and list the treatment like that, something that happened to you, something you endured, something you survived, what is that like?

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

It's something that I was -- before my kidnapping, I worked on human rights issues, both in Israel-Palestine and in the Syrian context, and I have friends who have gone through torture in Syria and Iraq and Iran.

So I knew a lot about torture, probably one of the most knowledgeable people about torture in a theoretical sense who has ever been then captured and tortured. And still nothing really prepares you for that horror. All the theoretical knowledge you can have about different positions and about -- it's still -- it's just -- there's something deeply dehumanizing about that experience.

And just witnessing people who enjoy doing that, I wouldn't do this to a cat, you know? And they were doing it to a fellow human being who is screaming and talking to them in their language. They understand me fully. And yet they're capable of doing that.

I mean, this is kind of pure monstrosity.

Amna Nawaz:

We know now that it took months and months of sustained diplomatic pressure from the U.S., from Israel, from Iraq to secure your release.

But what is your understanding of why they decided to let you go in the end?

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Things really changed when President Trump won the election. And I was about to say, was sworn in, but actually action began even before he was sworn in.

Adam Boehler, who was one of the early appointments in the Trump administration...

Amna Nawaz:

He leaves the Hostage Affairs Office in the White House.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Exactly.

So he agreed to take on my case. Then Adam Boehler traveled to Iraq, forced his way into a meeting with the prime minister, demanded my release. And, finally, the person who sealed the deal is Mark Savaya, who is an Iraqi-American, was recently appointed as the special envoy to Iraq of the Trump administration.

And he traveled in early September 2025 to Baghdad, met with Sudani, the prime minister of Iraq, and told them to tell Kataib Hezbollah, to tell the leadership that if they don't release me within a week, Trump is going to kill them. And because Trump had killed the previous commander of Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in 2020, they believed him.

And they released me within a week. Mark stayed behind in Iraq waiting for me to get out.

Amna Nawaz:

So much of your academic work that you mentioned, you're still continuing now focuses on the kind of people who kidnapped you, who tortured you for those years.

You're continuing that work now. But I wonder, if you look at that entire world of power and militias and all of this, do you look at it differently now?

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Oh, absolutely.

Basically, my roommates, my guards, right, were Kataib Hezbollah members. And this allowed me to learn so much about them. These militias in their rhetoric, the way they present themselves, they're always, we are a resistance movement against the U.S. occupation, against Israel, et cetera.

In reality, the majority of their victims are Arabs. The Iraqi militias throughout their entire history have killed only two Israelis with a drone attack. And I'm their only victim, kidnapping victim, who is an Israeli. The rest are Iraqis.

All the cars in which I was driven were new, had new car smell, were leather seats. In the last facility where I was held, there was a Jacuzzi, not for me, obviously. The commanders of these militias are extremely rich men. And this was very evident also in the members who interacted with me or my guards.

There are people who are just there for salary, because Iraq doesn't have a private sector. And this is a way to get a job. And the additional perk you get is that you are also intimidating your surrounding. So it draws people who enjoy feeling power over others, scaring their neighbor.

I can park in his parking spot. He's not going to do anything. I'm with a militia. It often draws people from very poor backgrounds, people who were looked down upon, and now they want to feel strong.

Amna Nawaz:

Can I just say, Elizabeth, to hear you talk about it this way, this is clearly your area of expertise. You have encyclopedic knowledge, but to have lived through what you lived through, it must feel very personal now.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

It does. It does.

And knowing that these militias, the way they're viewed in Washington, which is very understandable, is, they are a threat to US national security. And that's clear. These militias have killed American soldiers in Iraq. But I also see basically the human cost that they exact from Iraqi society.

The cell where I was held in the first prison had bloodstains on it. That blood was not mine. That was blood from some Iraqi who was kidnapped by this group and tortured. These militias, their influence, their capture of the Iraqi state means misery for the millions of Iraqis who live there.

So, of course the U.S. is out there to pursue its own interests. But those interests often align with the interests of the Iraqi people, who are the main victims of these militias. It's not the U.S. and it's not me.

Amna Nawaz:

It's a testament to you and your work and your spirit that you are sharing their stories as you sit here today, but we're so glad to see you...

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Thank you.

Amna Nawaz:

... here today. And thank you so much for making the time to speak with us, Elizabeth Tsurkov.

Elizabeth Tsurkov:

Thank you.