The undated 37-second video of Noa Argamani, 26, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, released on Sunday night showed them speaking presumably under duress, pleading with Israel’s government to end the war and get them home.
The clip ended with a Hamas caption that on Monday, “we will inform you of their fate”. Israel has blasted such videos as psychological warfare and insists it will not be deflected from its goals in Gaza, after Hamas launched raids into southern Israel on October 7 that claimed 1,200 lives.
Among the targets was a music festival from which Ms Argamani and her boyfriend were seized. An early clip released by Hamas showed her pleading for her life as she was taken away on the back of a motorbike.
I feel like people forget about this. Hamas wants their constituents to die. They want to put their weaponry and bases inside hospitals and places of worship because they know IDF will have to seize or attack them and making them look bad for damaging health facilities and mosques. I am pro-Palestine and pro-Israel, but I notice there’s a lack of nuance too often in the pro-Palestine movement. I know most Gazans are not involved in Hamas. But few realize that most Israeli citizens are uninterested in destroying Gaza. Israel’s military and executive leadership has made poor decisions. But this does not necessarily equate to the country at large being genocidal.