The Evanston mother who was taken hostage by Hamas last year with her daughter has for the first time publicly described details of their capture and time in captivity.
Judith Raanan, 59, and her 18-year-old daughter, Natalie Raanan, were held for nearly two weeks and became the first hostages released by Hamas following the group’s Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. Nearly 1,200 people were killed in the attack and another 250 taken hostage.
“Two guys came in with full artillery — very frightening, very big weapons, with a big bomb,” Judith Raanan said in an interview with NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas. “They did say, ‘We’re not going to kill you.’”
Raanan and her daughter had been visiting relatives in Nahal Oz, a kibbutz about 1.5 miles from the Gaza border, when Raanan received a phone call from her mother the morning of Oct. 7 warning them to not go outside. Soon after, they heard gunshots in the distance and a rocket hit one of their rooms. Then they heard militants outside their door, she said.
“Don’t panic,” she said she told Natalie Raanan. “I knew that panic is really not suitable for this situation; if you panic, you can be shot. And the best thing is to see what’s next.”
The militants zip-tied the pair and took them at gunpoint across the desert to the Gaza border, Judith Raanan said in the interview. The mother suffered a cut to her hand when a militant sliced off her restraint with a knife.
The two were then taken to a hospital, where the mom said nurses cheered as she and her daughter arrived as hostages.
“I thought of my mother,” Raanan said. “Is she OK? Is she dead? Is she alive? You had no way of knowing.”
Raanan said she tried to keep her daughter occupied by singing songs to her, including Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” She also had militants provide the 18-year-old with colored pencils and paper to calm her during captivity.
When asked about the overall experience, Raanan told NewsNation, “It’s like Russian roulette. You don’t know if you’re gonna be dead or alive.”
Nearly two weeks after being kidnapped, the Qatari government struck a deal with Hamas to release Judith, an aesthetician, and Natalie, a recent Deerfield High School graduate.
The two were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross and taken to Israel, where they were evaluated by medical professionals before returning home in good health.
About 100 people are estimated to still be held captive by Hamas.
“We have hostages that are going through mental, physical, emotional hardships and need to be released,” Raanan said in the interview.
