The al-Qassam Brigades released the video on Wednesday, four days after the Israeli military confirmed the deaths of the six captives and said that it had recovered their bodies in a tunnel in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
Hamas said that the six had been killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza, and that they were on a list of captives due to be released in a ceasefire-prisoner exchange deal.
In the newly-released video, one captive Alexander Lobanov says al-Qassam forces has moved him ten times in order to protect his life. He also says that the Israeli cabinet would kill the captives by refusing to reach a deal on their exchange.
Another captive Carmel Gat, in her video message, appeals to the Israeli cabinet and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue the captives’ release, while calling on Israelis to keep up their rallies to help prevent the blocking of the negotiations aimed at releasing the captives.
Israelis have been holding protests on an almost daily basis in the past months to push for the captives’ release. The protests however have been expanded in size after the bodies of the six captives were recovered.
A general strike was also held on Monday across the occupied territories to pile up pressure on Netanyahu who is accused of pursuing his own political purposes by refusing to seal a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
4194