When Hamas terrorists forced Ditza Heiman out of her kibbutz October 7 and drove her off to Gaza, the then-84-year-old had no idea what would happen to her. “The worst feeling was the uncertainty,” Ms. Heiman told The New York Sun in an interview this week. “I had no idea what was going on. I held onto the hope that somehow I would be brought back to Israel.”

The Israeli grandmother went on to spend 53 days in Hamas captivity in abysmal sanitary conditions without any access to her medication, her glasses or her cane. She said she initially had no idea who her captors were. “I didn’t know if it was Hamas or [Islamic] Jihad that had kidnapped me,” said Ms. Heiman, who had been living on Kibbutz Nir Oz for 66 years prior to the Hamas attack. 

“I didn’t expect that my captor was actually a member of Unrwa,” commented Heiman, who was released as part of the November 2023 truce deal. 

Her captor, Abed, in limited English told her that he worked as a teacher for Unrwa. The UN aid agency employs 13,000 staff members in the Gaza Strip together with 17,000 employees across the region, and receives most of its funding by voluntary contributions from UN member states.  

In August, Unrwa announced that it had terminated 9 staff members for their alleged involvement in the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, which left 1,200 Israelis dead, thousands injured, scores of homes burned down, and 251 Israelis abducted to Gaza. However, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reported that 1,468 Unrwa workers are known to be active members in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with 185 Unrwa workers active in the military branches of Hamas and 51 active in the PIJ military branch.

Ms. Heiman described being locked in a small room in Abed’s Gaza home. When she was initially brought to Abed’s house, she saw on the way there high walls with Unrwa symbols outside the car she was traveling in. “It appeared that we were close to an Unrwa complex,” she said. Inside her captor’s home, Heiman recalls there were piles of notebooks with the Unrwa symbol on them. 

“I asked for a piece of paper and my captor gave me a notebook with the Unrwa symbol from the pile in his home. The notebooks looked like the kind of notebooks used in classrooms.” 

In addition, Ms. Heiman, who worked for four decades as a social worker and retired at age 80, shared that Unrwa-labeled energy bars were served as her meals. “I was given energy bars to eat from time to time. On the wrappers there was the Unrwa symbol, and print in English that the energy bars were designated for school children in Gaza,” she said. “They must have been given as snacks for kids in Unrwa schools as well as food for the hostages.” 

“I was familiar with Unrwa before,” said Ms. Heiman. “But I had no idea how involved Unrwa was with Hamas.” 

Ms. Heiman is one of the 101 plaintiffs, all victims or families of victims of the devastating Hamas massacre one year ago, who filed a lawsuit in June claiming $1 billion in damages from Unrwa. The lawsuit was filed by the Chicago-based law firm MM-Law LLC and Amini LLC law firm in the Southern District of New York on behalf of 101 victims or their families.

“I don’t anticipate that I will receive any monetary compensation from this lawsuit,” Ms. Heiman said. “But I do hope that the lawsuit will open the world’s eyes to what Unrwa is really doing alongside all their other activities.”

Ms. Heiman’s daughter, Neta Heiman Mina, recently addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council at the behest of UN Watch, stating “It’s shocking that a person whose salary is paid by international donations and who teaches the future generation of Gaza was holding an elderly hostage. What will the UN do to ensure that Abed never returns to a classroom to teach children?”

Israel on Monday passed legislation banning Unrwa activities from operating in the country as well as banning any Israeli authorities from contact with the UN agency. Both the coalition and opposition in the Israeli government sponsored the bills.

Ms. Heiman, a grandmother to 20 grandchildren, is wary of Israel’s future. She can no longer return to her beloved kibbutz which she helped found in 1957. Instead, she and five other elderly women from Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was largely burnt down by Hamas, live in an assisted living facility in central Israel, while other kibbutz pensioners were relocated to Karmei Gat and Lehavim. 

“So many of my friends were murdered on October 7,” said Ms. Heiman, whose family has lived in Israel for six generations. “And so many were kidnapped. I’m nearly 86 and I’ve lived through many wars. But nothing like this.”

“Although I’ve always been blessed with a good memory, there are things from the past year I’d rather forget.”