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Israel war 2023
Published December 23, 2023, 2:27 pm ET
Hamas's military wing claimed on Saturday that three elderly Israeli nationals were among five hostages allegedly killed in an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip.
The terror group claimed that five hostages – including Israelis Chaim Peri, Yoram Metsger and Amiram Cooper – were killed because contact was lost with the Hamas members tasked with guarding them, Al-Qassam Brigades posted on Telegram.
The two other hostages were not named in the post.
Peri, 79, Metzger, 80, and 84-year-old Cooper were all kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7 massacre.
Earlier this week, the men appeared together in a disturbing video that Hamas posted on social media.
In the footage, the three Israelis, all with untrimmed beards after ten weeks in captivity, sat side by side in front of the camera.
The group “suffered a lot under very harsh conditions,” Peri said in the recordings.
Chaim Peri, Yoram Metsger and Amiram Cooper were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. Getty Images
He pleaded with Israel to ensure their release.
Israel then condemned the gruesome clip as a “criminal, terrorist video” that highlights Hamas's “cruelty towards elderly civilians, innocent people in need of medical care.”
Peri – a film lecturer and activist – was kidnapped from his kibbutz home as he tried to protect his wife behind a couch, his family told the media.
The bodies of Palestinians killed in Gaza on Saturday. Getty Images Chaim Peri, Yoram Metsger and Amiram Cooper were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. HAMAS via Portal
He eventually surrendered to the Hamas invaders to ensure that it remained hidden, they said.
“He doesn't look good, to tell you the truth. He looks thin and tired and not himself,” Peri’s daughter Noam Peri told PBS News Hour after seeing her father in the terrorist’s video.
“He looks sad. It was hard. It was hard to see him like that,” she lamented, adding that she believed her father was speaking “in his own words” in the video.
Two women mourn amid Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. Getty Images
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Metzger was kidnapped along with his wife, 78-year-old Tamar Metzger, who was released in mid-November, the Times of Israel reported.
Metzger has diabetes and still has limited mobility due to a broken hip, his family told the outlet.
“It was a moment of joy to see her alive. “It was shocking to see them like that, with grown beards, slimmed down and weak and pale,” his daughter-in-law Ayala Metzger said this week of the Hamas video.
Cooper, an economist, was one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz and was kidnapped along with his wife Nurit, the Times of Israel reported.
After Nurit was released on October 23, she told her family about her horrific abduction.
During the first weeks of their captivity, the Coopers were kept with five other kibbutz members, their son later explained. Their location was so dark and opaque that it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night, he said.
Hamas's claim that the three men were killed in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip comes less than two weeks after the Israel Defense Forces admitted it mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages during a patrol in Gaza City.
Gaza has been the subject of a retaliatory attack by Israel since October 7th.
According to unconfirmed reports from the region's Hamas-affiliated health ministry, around 20,000 people are said to have died in the massive military operation.
Hamas does not distinguish between civilian deaths and the deaths of its fighters.
With post wires
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