Israeli-Palestinian conflict
May 23, 2024
10:09
The Hostages’ Families Forum has released a video immortalizing five Israeli military observers kidnapped by Hamas on October 7: “Extreme brutality”. But for the Islamist group those images were manipulated: “The authenticity of the film cannot be confirmed.”
Covered in blood, with a look of terror. The immortalizing images have been released in the past few hours five observers military Israeli kidnapped by Hamas last October 7 from the kibbutz of Nahal Oz. Authorizing the dissemination of the video, which went around the world, was the Hostage families forum, tired of seeing no progress in the negotiations to free their loved ones still in the Strip: “The Israeli government must not waste another minute of time, it must return to the negotiating table today”. But Hamas doesn’t agree, arguing that that footage was manipulated. But let’s take a step back.
The video was released Wednesday afternoon by the Hostages’ Families Forum. You can see them in the images Liri Elbag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa And Naama Levy, the latter already appeared in another film in the first days after the Hamas attack. Around them, sitting on the ground, about twenty Hamas militiamen who they insult and not only: “Dogs, we would crush you”, “You are beautiful Zionists“. One terrorist says to another: “These are the girls who can get pregnant.”
The video, taken from bodycam of the militiamen, lasts a total of 3 minutes and 10 seconds. The families of the hostages explained that it was “edited and censored to exclude the most distressing scenes”, such as the images of “many boys and girls killed in the Nahal Oz base and inside the bomb shelter” and other sequences “of extreme brutality“.
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The news was also commented on by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I am shocked by the video documenting the kidnapping of our dear female soldiers. We will continue to do everything to bring them home,” he wrote on all my strength untilelimination of Hamasto ensure that what we saw tonight never happens again.”
But hours after the video was released, Hamas intervened to have its say with a statement relaunched by Al Jazeera in which it is specified that the video showing the five Israeli women kidnapped on October 7 “was manipulated And authenticity what it contains cannot be confirmed.” The Islamist group added that “the female soldiers were treated according to the ethics of our resistance and no mistreatment of the soldiers in this unit was demonstrated.” The clip, they claimed, is part of Israel’s promotion of “falsified narratives“.
