U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov , 38, an Israeli born to Russian parents who was taken from Baghdad two years ago, has been freed.
“I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton student, whose sister is an American citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah” and is now “safely in the American embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
He also called on Hamas to release the 50 hostages, both alive and dead, who have been held in captivity in Gaza since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Tsurkov, who is Jewish, was kidnapped by the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi’ite militia Kata’ib Hezbollah