\n<\/p>\n
An Israeli-Russian researcher has been released after “being tortured for many months” by her Iraqi militia abductors, US President Donald Trump has announced.<\/p>\n
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton student, whose sister is an American citizen, was just released by Kataib Hezbollah, and is now safely in the American embassy in Iraq”.<\/p>\n
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani confirmed Ms Tsurkov’s release shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n
She had gone missing in Iraq during a research trip in March 2023 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said several months later that she was being held by the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, Sudani said Ms Tsurkov’s release was “a culmination of extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months”. <\/p>\n
He added that the security services on Tuesday were able to “uncover” the place the student had been held, before handing her over to the US embassy.<\/p>\n
Ms Tsurkov entered Iraq on her Russian passport, Netanyahu’s office said at the time.<\/p>\n
According to Ms Tsurkov’s website, her research focuses on the Levant – a historical term that refers to a large geographical region including present-day Israel, Syria and other areas – and “the Syrian uprising and civil war”.<\/p>\n
Kataib Hezbollah (Brigades of the Party of God) is a powerful Iraqi Shia militia that gets financial and military support from Iran. It was designated by the US as a terrorist organisation in 2009.<\/p>\n
In Tuesday’s post on Truth Social, Trump also said: “I will always fight for justice and never give up. <\/p>\n
“Hamas, release the hostages, now!” he added, in a reference to those people seized by the Palestinian group during its deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Israeli-Russian researcher has been released after “being tortured for many months” by her Iraqi militia abductors, US President Donald Trump has announced. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton student, whose sister is an American citizen, was just released by Kataib Hezbollah, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11611],"tags":[19884,4120,8002,3717,19885,14297,19886],"class_list":["post-29628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spyballoon-global-news","tag-abducted","tag-elizabeth","tag-freed","tag-iraq","tag-israelirussian","tag-researcher","tag-tsurkov"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b9cf\/live\/8413e920-8dc0-11f0-b575-73c6daf55268.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"SPYBALLOON GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"An Israeli-Russian researcher has been released after “being tortured for many months” by her Iraqi militia abductors, US President Donald Trump has announced. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton student, whose sister is an American citizen, was just released by Kataib Hezbollah, and…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29630,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29628\/revisions\/29630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}