ABC’s AM host Sabra Lane ignores ‘hell’ of Israeli hostage saga

AM host Sabra Lane and the ABC’s Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn have been criticised for their coverage of the release of the first hostages from Hamas’ ‘spiderwebs’ of hell.

ABC’s AM host Sabra Lane.

The ABC’s AM host Sabra Lane and the national broadcaster’s Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn have omitted key details of the terror an 85-year-old grandmother Yocheved Lifshitz endured while she was held hostage by Hamas in a report about her recent release.

Jewish groups in Australia have voiced their outrage over the omissions, as the segment on the ABC’s flagship radio current affairs program instead focused on Mrs Lifshitz saying she was “treated well” once she was inside Gaza.

But the ABC failed to mention in their story on Wednesday the beatings Mrs Lifshitz endured, the details of her violent kidnapping, and only mentioned her husband’s continued captivity briefly at the very end of the segment.

The news of the release of the first hostages was covered in a five minute segment on the program on Wednesday after a frail looking Mrs Lifshitz and her neighbour, who was also kidnapped, Nurit Cooper, 79, fronted a press conference to talk about their ordeal outside a hospital in Tel Aviv, surrounded by family.

Mrs Lifshitz, whose husband is still being held captive, sat in a wheelchair and told of how she was attacked on the first day of her 17-day ordeal.

She was snatched from her home, detained, thrown across a motorbike and, once she was in Gaza, was beaten with sticks by Hamas fighters.

Mrs Lifshitz, one of 200 being kidnapped during the terrorist attack on October 7, added that she and other hostages were then marched for several kilometres on wet ground inside a “spiderweb” of underground tunnels, reportedly stretching 500km long.

She said: “I went through hell”.

“Eighty-five year old Yocheved Lifshitz says she was taken to a spiderweb of underground tunnels, that it was terrifying, but she was treated well in captivity,” Lane said.

Yocheved Lifshitz speaks to the media outside Ichilov Hospital after she was released by Hamas.

Horn, speaking from Israel, also didn’t mention the assaults the hostages endured.

“She said that a medic and doctor came and the hostages were put on mattresses. She said doctors came every couple of days and she described the treatment by Hamas as ‘good’ as saying that her captors made sure the conditions were sanitary, and that they were very friendly to the people who had been captured and that they took care of all of their needs,” Horn said.

Horn added that Mrs Lifshitz also “took a swipe at Israel”.

“(She was) saying that the lack of knowledge by the IDF, the Israeli defence force, and the Shin Bet here about what Hamas had been planning really hurt the people of Israel badly and the people of Israel had become scapegoats for poor leadership. She said that there were multiple signs ahead of the onslaught that something was coming and that the IDF had somehow not taken it very seriously,” Horn said.

The ABC has been contacted for comment over the omissions.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said he was confused as to how the ABC had chosen to ignore elements of Mrs Lifshitz’s experience and shocked the national broadcaster, once again, gave a terrorist organisation glowing coverage.

“Somehow the ABC has managed to convert the story of a released 85-year-old female Israeli hostage from ‘I went through hell’ to ‘I was well treated’. In fact, as the hostage made clear at a media briefing, she was beaten repeatedly and severely by her Hamas captors when she was captured and while she was being abducted from her home to Gaza. She was kept in dark, damp tunnels for much of the time with armed terrorists, and the threat of death, constantly present. The fact that she was not further maltreated is hardly cause for giving the terrorists positive coverage,” Mr Wertheim told The Australian.

The coverage of the conflict has reportedly caused “a civil war” inside the ABC in recent days, sources told The Australian on Wednesday.

It is also causing angst for international outlets like The New York Times.

Internal messages showed pushback by some reporters by the paper’s initial framing of the stories from the conflict zone, including the recent Gaza hospital bombing.

On Wednesday the US broadsheet mentioned both the “hell” and the “good treatment” Mrs Lifshitz endured in captivity.”

“Yocheved Lifshitz, a grandmother and Israeli peace activist, was kidnapped, beaten and held in tunnels built by Hamas for 17 days,” The New York Times reported overnight.