14 November 2023; MEMO: An Iraqi television channel yesterday broadcast a video of Israeli-Russian doctoral student Elizabeth Tsurkov, the first ever since her kidnapping nine months ago in Baghdad, in an incident that the Israeli authorities blamed on pro-Iran Shia militias.
Tsurkov is likely to have entered Iraq on a Russian passport before being kidnapped in the capital at the end of March.
On Monday evening, the Iraqi Al-Rabiaa television channel broadcast the first video of Tsurkov since her disappearance. In the four-minute recording, the hostage is sitting on a chair, wearing a black shirt, and addresses the camera.
The authenticity of this recording has not been verified by an independent source, nor has it been determined whether the hostage was subject to threats.
There was no immediate reaction from the Tsurkov family nor from the Israeli or Iraqi authorities.
In the video, Tsurkov mentions Israel’s war on Gaza and says that she has been detained for seven months, without mentioning the name of the party holding her nor the place – or even the country – where she is being held.
She also said in the video that she worked for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the CIA in both Syria and Iraq.
Adding that there have been no efforts to free her.
In early July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah, the most prominent faction in the Popular Mobilisation Forces, of holding her, but the armed faction has denied involvement in her disappearance.
Following the Israeli accusation, the Iraqi government announced it would open an investigation into the researcher’s kidnapping.
Tsurkov travelled to Iraq as part of research she is conducting to prepare her doctoral thesis at Princeton University in the US. In Baghdad, Tsurkov focused her research on pro-Iran factions and on the Sadrist movement led by Iraqi Shia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, according to journalists who met her.
Tsurkov says on her personal website that she speaks English, Hebrew, Russian and Arabic.
She is also, according to the same source, a fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, and a research fellow at the Regional Thinking Forum, an Israeli-Palestinian think tank based in Jerusalem.
