The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas broadcast a video on Telegram on Friday featuring three Israeli hostages, two of whom claimed to be soldiers.
• Also read: Israel must prevent and punish incitement to “genocide,” the International Court of Justice rules
• Also read: October 7 attack: UNRWA parts ways with “several” employees accused by Israel
• Also read: Hamas' health ministry reports a death toll of 25,900
The three women were officially identified by AFP based on official or communal sources as those taken hostage during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and have been held captive in the Gaza Strip since then. Gaza.
In the video, which is a little less than 5 minutes long, the three young women appear separately one after the other against a gray background.
In Hebrew, they take turns accusing the Israeli government of being uninterested in their fate before appearing on screen together and demanding their immediate return home.
- Listen to the interview with Yakov Rabkin, professor emeritus of history at the University of Montreal and founding member of Independent Jewish Voices QUB :
Two of them, Karina Ariev and Daniella Gilboa, introduce themselves as soldiers, both 19 years old, and the third, Doron Steinbrecher, a civilian, is 30 years old. All three say they were detained for 107 days, suggesting the images were filmed on Sunday.
The video was released hours after the UN's highest court ruled that Israel should prevent any possible “genocide” and allow humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip.
The Oct. 7 attack in Israel left more than 1,140 people, mostly civilians, dead, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
According to Israeli authorities, about 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A hundred were released in late November under a ceasefire in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and 132 hostages remain held in Palestinian territory, 28 of whom are believed to have died.
In response, Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a massive military operation that killed 26,083 people, the vast majority of them women, children and teenagers, according to the Health Ministry Palestinian Islamist movement.