A landlord denied demanding a kidnapped Israeli woman's $600 a month rent after WhatsApp screenshots went viral
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
- A 27-year-old woman was kidnapped by Hamas militants during the Nova Music Festival last week.
- Her landlord asked for her $600 rent to be paid, according to multiple reports.
- After receiving intense backlash, the landlord said he never made such a request.
The landlord of a kidnapped Israeli woman denied demanding for her $600 a month rent to be paid, after WhatsApp screenshots of what appeared to be his exchange with her family went viral.
Inbar Heiman, a 27-year-old student from Haifa, was captured by Hamas militants last week after they stormed the Nova Music Festival, brutally killing more than 260 people in terror attacks.
The Hamas terror attacks on Saturday, October 7, killed 1,300 Israelis and foreign nationals and injured 3,715, say Israeli authorities.
Israel responded by launching waves of airstrikes on Gaza that have killed 2,670 Palestinians and injured 9,600, Palestinian health authorities say.
Heiman's boyfriend, Noam Alon, told The New York Times that a video appears to show her bleeding from the face as she is brought into Gaza by her captors who chant "Allahu Akbar" or God is great. The video has not been made public.
Shortly after her kidnapping, Heiman's landlord Aaron Reiss, messaged her housemate — who has not been identified — saying that her rent should be paid immediately, according to Alon's father, Mordehai.
Heiman and her housemate were living in the Hadar neighborhood in Haifa, which is the third-largest city in Israel.
In screenshots of a WhatsApp exchange, shared by Mordehai on Facebook, the landlord appears to tell the roommate that he has the duty to pay Heiman's rent, which is 2,500 Shekels or $626 per month.
Insider has not been able to independently verify the messages.
The incident sparked public outcry.
Maccabi Haifa, a local soccer club that Heiman and her boyfriend supported, eventually offered to pay her rent for the next year.
Mordehai did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Since the outrage, Reiss told YNet that he never requested money in the first place, adding that he hopes that Heiman "returns as soon as possible, safe and sound."
"As a matter of fact, there is a whirlwind of shaming here," he told the publication. "My tenant and the kidnapped [girl] do not owe me a shekel. How did it come to this whole situation? I don't know. I didn't ask for money — not from her family and certainly not from her."
In a separate interview released last week, Reiss also said he is obtaining a lawyer, adding that his tenant is going to "spend his life paying for this."