Elma Avraham, an elderly woman who was released from Hamas captivity during the November 2023 prisoner swap, will be released home after five months of hospitalization.
Upon her release from captivity Avraham was airlifted in very serious condition from Gaza to Soroka Medical Center, where staff fought for her life. Her condition has since improved singificantly.
Avraham, who was 84 at the time of her release from Gaza, celebrated her 85th birthday during her stay in the hospital.
Avraham was kidnapped from her home in the community of Nahal Oz, on the morning of October 7. She is medically complex and requires several medications on a daily basis in order to live.
Professor Moti Klein, who heads Soroka's ICU, said shortly after her arrival at the hospital: "Elma was evacuated in serious condition. She is being treated in the general ICU, and is still in serious condition, unstable, unconscious and on a respirator. There is a danger to her life."
"She arrived semiconscious. From tests we performed, blood tests and other tests, her condition is the result of the fact that she did not receive the medications she was supposed to receive - medications that essentially keep her alive. We are familiar, from other places in medicine, with what happens when patients do not receive such medications for one reason or another. We have no doubt that this is the case in this instance," he told Channel 12 News.
Tali Amano, Avraham's daughter, said at the time, "My brother met with a representative of the Red Cross and tried to give them her medications. They told him, 'No, we can't take her medications.' Just a few days later we went to the protest with all of the medical professionals in front of the Red Cross building. We met their representatives there again, and again we were turned away at the entrance: 'You came again with all of her medications?'"