Egypt Daily News – On Saturday, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, released a new video featuring two Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip. This came a day after Israeli forces launched a ground assault in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza City “to expand the security zone” inside the enclave. According to the French news agency AFP, the video shows the two Israeli hostages, who claim to have survived an Israeli airstrike.
The Hostages Families Forum issued a statement confirming that one of the hostages in the video was Maxim Herkin. Israeli media identified the second hostage as Israeli soldier Bar Kuperstein. Herkin’s family has urged the media not to publish the video.
The two men were kidnapped while attending the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, during an attack by Palestinian gunmen that sparked the war in Gaza. The video shows Herkin with bandages on his cheek and right hand.
Kuperstein, who is from Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, was 21 years old when he was abducted. Herkin, who also holds Russian citizenship, was 35 years old at the time of his kidnapping. He had immigrated to Israel from Ukraine with his mother.
The release of the video came a day after Israeli forces launched a ground offensive in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood to “expand the security zone” in Gaza. The military wing of Hamas said on Friday that the attack puts the hostages’ lives at risk. Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that at least 29 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Saturday.
Later, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, reported that “six martyrs, including a 40-year-old woman, and several injuries, including children, were transported to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis following an Israeli airstrike that targeted a tent housing dozens of displaced people and a house west of Khan Younis before midnight (Saturday).”
During the October 7, 2023 attack, Palestinian factions kidnapped 251 hostages. As of now, 58 of them remain in captivity, while Israeli forces claim that 34 have been killed. During the most recent ceasefire, which ended on March 18 before Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza, the factions released 33 hostages, including 8 bodies.
The ongoing war in Gaza has resulted in at least 50,669 deaths, the majority of whom are civilians, including women and children, according to data from the health ministry administered by Hamas, which is considered reliable by the United Nations.
