(CNN) – A 21-year-old Yazidi woman was rescued in Gaza, where she had been held captive by Hamas for years after being trafficked by ISIS.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday that Fawzia Amin Sido was freed this week in a coordinated operation between Israel, the United States and other international actors.
Fawzia told CNN that she had been returned to Iraq after enduring years of captivity.
The woman said she was initially kidnapped by ISIS as a child in August 2014, when the group captured the city of Sinjar in the Nineveh governorate in northern Iraq, where it executed Yazidi men and boys and committed acts of violence. sexual violence and rape against women and girls, among other crimes.
Over the next few years, Fawzia was trafficked to locations in several countries.
“We ended up in the Al-Hol camp (in Syria) before we were smuggled to Idlib in 2019, and from there we went to Türkiye. In 2020, they processed a passport for me in Türkiye so that I could fly from Istanbul to Hurghada (Egypt) and then to Gaza,” he declared.
He told CNN that he spent a year in Rafah, southern Gaza, where life was “unbearable.”
“Hamas constantly harassed me due to my Yazidi origin and contact with my family, even going so far as to format my phone (delete its contents) during their investigations. After a year, they moved me to a safe house.”
When war broke out between Israel and Hamas in 2023, she was frequently moved again, until October 1, when she said an NGO rescued her.
The IDF said her captor had died, “presumably during IDF strikes” in Gaza, allowing her to flee to a hideout, where she was rescued and taken to the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
Fawzia did not mention any attack when she spoke to CNN about her ordeal, saying only that she was rescued by an NGO she did not remember the name of, in Rafah.
“From there, American officials picked me up and helped me return to Baghdad,” he declared.
Hamas, in a statement, said the IDF was promoting “a false narrative and a fabricated story about the Yazidi girl who was in Gaza, and narrated fabricated facts that are not supported by the truth.”
He added that “the Yazidi woman married a young Palestinian” who was fighting “in the ranks of the opposition forces” in Syria before being killed there.
Hamas alleged that she “traveled of her own free will with her mother” to Türkiye, Egypt and Gaza before marrying her husband’s brother. After he was killed, the Palestinian government “provided her with a private room in one of the government facilities in southern Gaza” at her request.
Hamas stated that the IDF “did not release her” and that “the lady contacted her family, who in turn contacted the Jordanian government, which in turn coordinated” with the IDF to get her out of there. through the “Kerem Shalom border crossing, where the Yazidi lady went from the government facility designated for her to the border crossing herself with the knowledge of her husband’s family and the knowledge of the Palestinian government.”
CNN has contacted Jordanian authorities for comment.
Fawzia was one of thousands of Yazidi women that ISIS fighters kidnapped during their attack on the Iraqi district of Sinjar, the Yazidis’ hometown, in August 2014.
Fawzia’s lawyer, Zemfira Dlovani, told CNN on Friday that there are currently between 2,300 and 2,500 Yazidi women and children who remain missing, but that efforts continue to locate the missing people.
Dlovani would not share details about his actions, but says he hopes to rescue more missing Yazidis.
“We are not going to stop until the last person is saved,” said Dlovani, who is also a Yazidi. Dlovani said he worked on Fawzia’s case for months until he was able to rescue her from Gaza with the help of Israeli authorities.
She said a person who knows Fawzia had contacted her for help months ago, “and since then I never stopped working on the case.”
“I was only in contact with Israeli officials during this time,” he added. The lawyer said that after Fawzia’s rescue, she hopes more Yazidi women will contact her and ask for help.
Israel released a video in which she was seen reunited with her relatives, who hugged her excitedly.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said she had been freed after more than four months of efforts by Iraqi government agencies in collaboration with US and Jordanian authorities. The ministry did not say where she had been rescued from and did not mention Israel.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed that the United States helped evacuate Fawzia from Gaza. He echoed Israel’s version, saying that “the recent death of his captor in Gaza allowed him to escape.”
“We were contacted by the Iraqi government, which was made aware of the fact that she had escaped, that she was alive and that she wanted to return home to her family. And the government of Iraq asked us to do everything we could to get her out of Gaza and bring her home. So in recent weeks we have worked with several of our partners in the region to get it out,” Miller said at a press conference on Thursday.
