Hamas released a video on Friday showing two hostages being kicked out around Gaza city.
The propaganda video shows prisoners of war Geigilboadalal in a car located in several locations in Gaza city, including outside of Red Crescent headquarters. As photographed last week, damaged buildings have been revealed through car windows as an invisible driver leads the car through parts of the city. CNN has globalized the video into Gaza city.
Towards the end of the video, the second hostage, 24-year-old Aron Owell appears in the car alongside Gilboa Dalal. They hug them and look surprised to see each other. “I can’t believe I met you,” Gilboa Dalal says several times in the video.
It was a rare Hamas hostage video in which prisoners were filmed on the ground. Gilbore Dalal, who is likely filmed under strength, said in the clip that the filming date was August 28th, and that he was hostage for 22 months.
The release of the video came on the 700th day of the war. This was marked by Israeli-wide protests seeking a ceasefire contract where hostages were released.
It also argues that the Israeli government is insisting on pushing for an attack on Gaza city despite objections from hostage families, the international community and many of the military. The attack is expected to drive away nearly a million Palestinians, and already forced heavy humanitarian casualties. Health officials said at least seven children were killed in a strike in Gaza city on Thursday.
Last month, Hamas accepted a step-by-step hostage contract presented by mediators Qatar and Egypt, saying it was roughly the same as the US offer. But Israel rejected it, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that all hostages would be released and accept nothing other than a comprehensive agreement in which Hamas would disarm.
In conversations with hostage families, Netanyahu said there was no video that “weaks us or distracts us” from achieving what Israel had set as Israel’s biggest war goal.
The Hostages and Missing Family Forum responded to the Prime Minister by saying, “Whether it’s rehabilitation or for proper burial, anyone who truly wants to take home all 48 hostages must immediately send their negotiation team to the negotiation table.”
In the nearly four-minute video, Gilboa Dalal is working on a planned Israeli acquisition and occupation of Gaza, where the Israeli government is suing to take him home.
“I heard you’re going to attack Gaza City, but this idea is giving me a nightmare. What does that mean?” asks Gilboa Dalal. “That means we’ll die here.”
He says there are eight other hostages in Gaza city that “will die here” if the attack advances. CNN cannot confirm the allegations that eight hostages are in Gaza city.
Gilboa Dalal also called on Israelis to demonstrate to the government and demand a war to bring the remaining 48 hostages home, of which 20 are believed to be still alive.
“We just want to finish this. We want to go back to our family. We’ve found adjacent to the army. We’re scared, there’s an explosion here, gunshot. Please return us,” he says.
Gilboa-Dalal was last seen in the Hamas Propaganda video released in February, and was forced to see other hostages being released during an agreed exchange between Hamas and Israel.
On Friday morning, the Hostages and Missing Family Forum criticized the escalating attack on Gaza City. In a statement, the hostage families said they had been explained by Israeli forces that the attack would increase the risk of hostages as the Israeli Army (IDF) lacked accurate information about the location.
“There’s a contract at the table. This is what brings back the last hostages. This is what will end the war,” the forum said in a statement.
On Thursday, the IDF said it already controls 40% of Gaza city and controls more than 70% of the total siege territory. The operation will “expand and strengthen” over the next few days, according to spokesman Brigg. General Effy Deflin.
Residents of Gaza City told CNN about the horrifying night as Israel bombed the city from above and ground forces were forced into the city’s outskirts.
More than 12 people, including at least seven children, were killed on a strike in Gaza city on Thursday, a spokesman for Alsifa Hospital said. Videos posted on social media show doctors and aid workers rushing to hospital with bloody, burning children and small bodies.
The Gaza Civil Defense Firefighter said he saw his mother raw the floor and searching for her child as her hands burned. He was able to save his mother, son and daughter. He was burnt from the flames and took everything to Alsifa Hospital.
“I haven’t overcome this situation for the rest of my life and the screams of my mother and her children will continue to echo in my heart,” the firefighter said.
CNN contacted the IDF for comment.
On Wednesday, a UNICEF spokesperson said Gaza children are “fighting for survival” in Gaza, which has become a “city of fear, flight and funerals.”
“The final shelter for families in the northern Gaza Strip is becoming a place where childhoods are not survived,” Tess Ingram said in New York after a nine-day visit to the city.
Meanwhile, the top European Union officials have accused Europe of their inability to stop “genocide” in Gaza.
“The genocide in Gaza exposes that despite the protests spread across European cities, they were unable to speak and did not act in one European voice,” said Teresa Libera, executive vice president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, in Paris on Thursday.
In response to her comments, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Rivera of “unfounded allegations.” Oren Marmorstein posted on X on Thursday that Ribera made it a “Hamas Propaganda mouthpiece.”
With the closure of Israeli forces, fear has become a constant reality for many Palestinians within the enclave’s largest city.
“Last night, Israeli forces bombed four houses on the same street as us,” said Sabi Al-Rantisi, who lives in Sheikh Radwan district. “It was a very difficult night.”
Al Rantisi says his wife and two children have fled to central Gaza, but for at least now he has refused to be kicked out.
According to a senior Israeli official, only 70,000 Palestinians have evacuated Gaza from around 1 million people so far, accounting for less than 10% of the total population. The overwhelming majority are not moving.
“We are not officially asking people to move,” said an official coordinator of government activities for Israeli Government Activities (Cogat) at the briefing. “The large-scale operation hasn’t started yet.”
Abu Yasser Al-Khour, a 51-year-old father of six, said he wouldn’t run away again.
“I’m staying in my house and we’re exhausted from the displacement so even if it means death, it won’t displace again until my last breath,” he told CNN.
He said a lack of water, medicine and cash holds Gaza city. His job as a driver has disappeared long ago, but like most of the city’s population, he refuses to leave.
“The evacuation life is unbearable, and we take in water and collect wood for cooking,” he said. “In the summer we die from the heat, in the winter we die from the cold. In every case, death in our own home is better than displacement.”
Fix: This story has been updated to correctly identify Alon Ohel’s age.
