Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says an armed Shiite militia is holding an Israeli-Russian citizen in Iraq after she disappeared there since March.
Netanyahu's office, in a statement carried by the state broadcaster, held Iraq responsible for the safety of the Israeli-Russian citizen, who had gone missing a few months ago, noting that she is still alive.
Netanyahu's office said the woman worked in academia and was being held hostage by the Shiite group Kataib Hezbollah, identifying the woman as Elizabeth Tsurkov.
According to the statement, Tsurkov visited Iraq using her Russian passport, and on her own initiative to obtain a doctoral thesis and academic research on behalf of Princeton University in the United States.
For its part, Iraqi sources told Al Jazeera that a specialized security team did not find the Israeli citizen despite searching for her and carrying out several raids. The sources also added that the kidnapped woman entered Iraq under the cover of a doctoral student and that she is conducting her academic research in Baghdad.
According to the official Israeli Kan channel, "Tsurkov is a former conscript in the Israeli army, known as a researcher on Syrian affairs and a commentator on the war that broke out there in 2011, and entered with her Russian passport."
The channel added that the website "Cardle" (Cardle) had previously talked about an Israeli researcher disappeared last March during a visit to the city of Basra in southern Iraq, but according to the information received, she was kidnapped from a house in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad on March 26.
Kan TV quoted high-ranking Iraqi security officials as telling the website that Tsurkov's kidnappers were wearing the uniforms of the Iraqi security services.