Israeli hostages say they are ‘dead men walking' in new video
Maxim Herkin, 37, and Bar Kuperstein, 23, said they were being held 30 metres underground. The video, which was released by Hamas in April and published by a group representing their families on Thursday, showed several hostages desperately pleading for their lives.
'We are dead men walking,' Herkin said, his right hand in bandages. 'We don't feel like human beings.'
A month later, in May, another video of Herkin was released, this time he was alone.
Hamas is holding at least 20 living hostages following its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and another 30 bodies of those killed on that day, or while in captivity. Since then, there have been two ceasefires, in which many of the 250 people taken, including women, children and the elderly, were released.
Efforts to reach a new ceasefire have so far failed but pressure from American and Qatari mediators is pushing the warring sides back to the table. New details released in The New York Times said ten living hostages and 18 bodies could be released in five stages over a ceasefire of 60 days, with no handover ceremonies as in previous exchanges.
Hamas were said to have agreed to a new proposal on Thursday but reiterated the condition that the ceasefire would lead to discussions to permanently end the war — a stumbling block for Israel that resulted in the collapse of the previous ceasefire and the resumption of fighting in March.
The heavily edited Hamas video, posted by the hostage families' forum, shows several hostages pleading for their lives. They are being held in dire conditions, many of them bound and starving deep underground.
'Please,' Kuperstein added. The video also showed clips of other Hamas films, including from their abduction and inside tunnels. Both hostages were taken from the Nova music festival, where about 380 revellers, mainly young people, shot dead.
The daily fighting in Gaza endangers the lives of Israeli hostages, their families and freed hostages say.
Overnight, 94 Palestinians were killed by airstrikes and shootings, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, which remains under Hamas control. Some 45 of those were in or around military-controlled aid distribution sites, where the killing of civilians has become an almost daily occurrence.
• Will there be a ceasefire in Gaza? Negotiations examined
Videos and accounts released by the Associated Press on Thursday told of American contractors employed at the aid sites using live ammunition, stun grenades and pepper spray as forms of 'crowd control' to deal with the masses in search of food.
'There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,' one contractor was quoted as saying. The contractors said unqualified staff were hired to guard the areas and seemed to have an open licence to act as they saw fit.
Protesters calling for the release of the hostages in Gaza in Jerusalem in April 2024
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Rights organisations say over 450 Gazans have been killed while they wait for food.
Meanwhile Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is set to visit the site of one of the worst-hit communities in southern Israel since the start of the war, Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a quarter of the residents were either kidnapped or killed. Anti-government groups have called for demonstrations at the kibbutz over Netanyahu's failure to end the war.
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