The armed wing of Hamas broadcast a video on Telegram on Saturday showing an Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attack, while at the same time the Israeli army bombs the Gaza Strip and orders new evacuations in Rafah.
These images of around ten seconds, and the date of recording is not specified, show a man, with a swollen eye and a haggard look, who utters his name. He is standing in front of a white tiled wall, in a place that appears dark. The message is accompanied by the hashtags written in Arabic and Hebrew: “Time is running out” and “your government is lying.”
This video comes on the 218th day of war and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas to secure a truce in Gaza associated with the release of hostages continue after delegations from mediating countries (Egypt, Qatar, United States) left Cairo on Thursday without an agreement following talks.
128 hostages held captive in Gaza, 36 of whom are believed to have died
The video was also broadcast just before May 14, the date of the proclamation of the State of Israel which was created in 1948. The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack against Israel, causing more than 1,170 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to have died, according to the army.
In response, Israel promised to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and to free the hostages, and launched an offensive which has so far left 34,971 dead, according to the Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health. Other hostage videos have already been released by Palestinian armed groups since the start of the war. The hostages speaking in the previous videos testified to the conditions of detention, and also challenged the Israeli authorities