When the Mia Leiberga 17-year-old Israeli, freed yesterday, appeared before television cameras holding in her arms what must have been a huge help to her during her captivity: her little dog Bella.

According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, Mos Leiberg, Mia’s father, had been searching for the animal for a long time after the attack in southern Israel on October 7 by the Islamist group Hamas, which took about 240 people hostage. , among them his daughter.

Before she began to hope that Mia and Bella had been driven to the Gaza Strip together and that the teenager would therefore have some real comfort with her.

The newspaper says that the girl, along with her mother, had visited her aunt’s house with her little dog in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak when they were taken hostage. The three women were released yesterday.

The animal’s fate was not revealed until last night when it appeared in Mia’s arms, flanked by two hooded men, members of the two Palestinian Islamist movements, Hamas on the one hand and Islamic Jihad on the other, as she was being handed over to International Committee of the Red Cross.

The photo was on the front page of one of the largest Israeli newspapers today.

Bella apparently stayed with Mia throughout her 7 weeks of detention in the Gaza Strip.