Hamas armed wing releases video of Gaza hostage

JERUSALEM - The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Jan 4 of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since its October 2023 attack.

In the undated, 3½-minute video recording that AFP has not been able to verify, 19-year-old soldier Liri Albag called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for relatives of those abducted, said Ms Albag’s family has not authorised publication of the video.

“We appeal to the prime minister, world leaders and all decision-makers: it’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there,” the family said in a statement.

Ms Albag was 18 when she was captured by Palestinian militants at the Nahal Oz base on the Gaza border along with six other women conscripts, five of whom remain in captivity.

Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released a number of videos of Israeli hostages in their custody during nearly 15 months of fighting in Gaza.

The militants seized 251 hostages during the 2023 attack, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.

Hamas said late on Jan 3 that indirect negotiations with Israel for a truce and hostage release deal were to resume in Qatar that same night. There has since been no update.

Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end the war.

Weekly demonstrations organised by the hostages forum, the latest scheduled in Tel Aviv on Jan 4, have kept up the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a deal to free the hostages.

The prime minister’s critics in Israel have accused him of stalling on a deal.

The forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home”.

On Jan 2, Mr Netanyahu’s office said he had authorised Israeli negotiators to join the latest round of truce and hostage release talks in Qatar. AFP