90-Year-Old Woman Survives Being Kidnapped By Hamas After Mentioning Lionel Messi’s Name

A 90-year-old woman survived being kidnapped by Hamas after mentioning the name of Argentine football superstar, Lionel Messi. Apparently, this lady survived the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz that was led by the Hamas in the October 7th attack on Israel last year.

Esther Cunio, 90, will feature in a docu-series that will tell this story from the Israeli part. According to sources, Cunio was forgiven after she revealed that she comes from the same village as Lionel Messi. The footballer was born in Rosario Argentina.

Further sources state that about 8 of her family members were taken captive. 5 of them were released in a truce reached between the Israeli government and the Hamas.

However, two of her grandchildren, Ariel and David Cunio are still being held captive. Ariel’s girlfriend, Arbel Yehud is also still a captive in Gaza.

Additionally, she’s now gone ahead to plead for the release of her remaining family. Meanwhile, she also told how the ordeal occurred. The Hamas knocked on her door and asked for her family to which she said that she didn’t have any.

However, they couldn’t communicate properly as she doesn’t speak good Hebrew, and yet the Hamas fighters were also speaking Arabic. But the moment she said she was from Messi’s hometown, they got excited and even posed for a selfie with her.

“Now I would ask for my grandchildren, for my two grandchildren who are locked up there. I would tell him to please pray to God, to send them… That he tries to get them out because they are kids who are worth gold,” Cunio says in the film.

“One of them asked, ‘Where is your family?’” she recalls. “I don’t have any family, I tell him,” she told them. “I am alone.” “You speak Arabic, and I speak Hebrew poorly,” she told him. “I speak Argentine, Spanish… Do you watch soccer?” “Messi!” replied the gunman, enthusing about the World Cup-winning Argentinian national team captain. “I like Messi.” “I hope that if [Messi] knows that I mentioned him, and because of him, I was saved,” she says in the film.