It was one of the few moments of relief during the war—a young Yazidi woman, abducted from her home more than a decade ago and held captive by a Hamas terrorist with Islamic State ties under harsh conditions in the Gaza Strip, was finally freed.
In an interview and her first conversation with an Israeli newspaper,Fawzia Amin Sidoshares her harrowing experience in Gaza and the dramatic rescue operation.
"I remember when I first entered Gaza, I was mostly terrified," Sido recalled. "I told myself I was going to be stuck there forever. I was heartbroken because I began to accept the idea that I would never see my family again. I didn't even know if they were alive or dead."
While caring for two young children, without speaking the language (she learned Arabic only during her captivity), and as a follower of what her captors considered an "inferior" religion, Sido was treated as a slave—even in Gaza. She was purchased by her husband’s younger brother and endured abuse, rape, and sexual assaults by family members, Hamas operatives, and other men.
"Life in Gaza was incredibly hard, and every step was accompanied by immense difficulty," she described. "I carried the trauma from before arriving in Gaza, and then there was life with two children in a foreign country, among strangers with a completely different mentality—there were very strict rules. There’s no freedom. People are constantly telling you what to do. It drove me to dark mental places, even to suicide attempts. I felt like I was losing my mind, even though my physical health wasn’t seriously harmed."
Fawzia Amin Sido reunites with her family in Iraq
In early October 2024, after a global rescue mission—new details of which are being revealed for the first time in 7 Days—Sido was transferred to Israel through the Kerem Shalom crossing. From there, she was escorted by American diplomats to Jordan and eventually returned home to Iraq.
"I was the last one to leave Rafah, the very last!" she said. "When I left, the city was empty—lifeless. I look back on everything that happened to me in Gaza as a nightmare or a bad dream, like it didn’t even really happen to me. Now that I’m in Germany, I’m overwhelmed with emotions. I was happy to return home, but I’m grieving because I had to leave my children behind in Gaza. One of the things that kept me sane was writing every day. I’d love to keep writing, but now I need a blank, clean, empty page to start over."