Hostage videos in Gaza | Israel in shock

(Jerusalem) Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said he was “dismayed” by the latest videos broadcast by Hamas hostages in the Gaza Strip and spoke with families, in a country horrified by these images.

The publication since Thursday by Hamas and Islamic jihad, its ally, of three videos showing two Israeli hostages, emaciated, has rekindled the debate on the need to reach an agreement as quickly as possible to release them.

Tens of thousands of people gathered on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv to demand the release of the hostages, an illustration of emotion which again approached the country.

“The Prime Minister expressed profound dismay at the recordings disseminated by the terrorist organization Hamas and told families that efforts to bring all our hostages to continue,” said his services.

On the propaganda images of the two Islamist groups, the two captives appeared very weakened and very emaciated, in a staging aimed at parallel with the humanitarian situation in Gaza, threatened with “generalized famine” according to the UN.

The sequence of a hollow hostage, shovel in hand, the sandy soil of the narrow tunnel where it is detained, pretending to dig his own grave, particularly shocked.

“Revealed and desperate”

Mr. Netanyahu, according to his office, had “a long conversation” on Saturday with the families of Rom Breslevski and Avyatar David, both exhibited in these latter videos. “The cruelty of Hamas has no limit,” he said, denouncing a “cynical and odious” staging, and again accusing Hamas “of also deliberately starving the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, by preventing them from receiving aid”.

President Isaac Herzog and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar reacted in the same direction, the latter announcing having “transmitted an urgent message to his colleagues around the world” and having “initiated a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council” on the issue.

The head of European Union diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, denounced on Sunday “appalling images of Israeli hostages”. French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot also moved from these “vile images”.

Sunday, the start of the week in Israel, the press titles remained widely devoted to the subject: “hungry, emaciated and desperate” (Yedioth Ahronoth), “Hell in Gaza” (Ma’ariv), “Cruelty without limit” (Israel Hayom), “Netanyahu is not in a hurry” (Haaretz).

Images in support of his Telegram account, the far-right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir went early in the mosques esplanade in East Jerusalem, a visit usually seen as a provocation by the Muslim world.

Jordan condemned this intrusion as a “blatant violation of international law […] An unacceptable provocation and an escalation ”. The office of Mr. Netanyahu stressed in the process that “Israel’s policy to maintain the status quo on Mount du Temple has not changed and will remain unchanged”.

Gravats expanses

Of the 251 people kidnapped on October 7, 2023 during the bloody attack in Hamas on Israel, 49 remain retained, 27 of which were declared dead by the Israeli army.

The attack resulted in the death of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count made from official data.

Israeli reprisals left at least 60,430 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.

Israel, who has been begging for the more than two million Palestinians from Gaza since the start of the war, raised the total humanitarian blockade in early May which he imposed in early March, but only authorizes the entrance to quantities of limited aid, deemed insufficient by the UN.

An AFP journalist, embarked on Saturday on a French army plane performing aid tear on Gaza, could see the extent of destruction in the north of the Palestinian territory, around the port.

If it was not allowed to film Gaza, she could observe that there are almost nothing left of certain districts, transformed into rubble and shaved by the bombings. Other districts are still standing, but dotted with impact areas where the buildings have been put on the ground.

According to the Civil Defense, 19 people were killed on Sunday by Israeli fire or bombing, including nine, which expected food in the south of Gaza near a center of the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, supported by Israel and the United States.

“The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there, no one was a threat, “said a witness, Jabr Al-Sha’er, 31, interviewed on the phone by AFP. The army did not comment on the incident.

An employee of the Palestinian Red Red Red was killed during the night in an Israeli strike who targeted the siege of the organization in Khan Younès, in southern Gaza, according to the same organization, reporting 51 of its members killed since the start of the Israeli offensive.

The army told AFP that it carried out “checks” on these facts.