Hostage families release clip of 5 female troops’ abduction to push for their freedom. In footage, Hamas terrorist describes the terrified, bloodied soldiers as 'women who can get pregnant'; father of Liri Albag asks: ‘What else can we do to wake the nation up?’
A still from footage showing the capture and abduction of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy at the Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023. Hostage families release clip of 5 female troops’ abduction to push for their freedom In footage, Hamas terrorist describes the terrified, bloodied soldiers as 'women who can get pregnant'; father of Liri Albag asks: ‘What else can we do to wake the nation up?’
22 May 2024. Hostage families release clip of 5 female troops’ abduction to push for their freedom. Hostages and Missing Families Forum released harrowing footage on Wednesday showing the abduction of five female soldiers from the Nahal Oz base by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, describing the video as a “damning testament to the nation’s failure to bring home the hostages.”
The video was taken by body cameras worn by Hamas terrorists that day as they attacked the base near the Gaza border, and it shows Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy. All five are still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
The families of the five soldiers asked to have the footage broadcast, with some of the parents saying that the goal is to wake up the nation, and especially the leadership, to work more urgently to secure their release. “I want you to broadcast this footage every day at the start of the news,” said Liri Albag’s father Eli, in the Channel 12 studio after the footage was screened, “until somebody wakes up.”
The three-minute edited video cleared for release begins inside a shelter on the base at around 9 a.m., when terrorists are tying the hands of the five young women, surveillance soldiers whose job is to monitor activity at the border and who appear shocked, horrified, wounded, and bloodied.
“I have friends in Palestine,” Levy, who participated in an Israeli-Palestinian coexistence project, says. Then Albag requests “someone who speaks English.” The terrorists respond by yelling at the captive soldiers to be quiet and ordering the group to sit down. “Our brothers died because of you. We will shoot you all,” one of the terrorists tells them.
Warning: Graphic -- One of the terrorists then asks Albag to call his friend in Gaza, though it is unclear why, while another asks where they are from, to which Berger replies she is from Tel Aviv.
The footage cuts to the terrorists praying, still in the shelter. One of the terrorists describes the hostages as “women who can get pregnant,” in a translation provided with the video.
However the term can also be translated as a “female captive.” It was also previously used by Islamic State terrorists to refer to sex slaves.
“These are the Zionists,” one says, and another says: “You are very beautiful.”
The video cuts to the terrorists bringing the soldiers outside to their vehicle, as gunfire is heard in the background. Daniella Gilboa is limping, having been injured in the leg. It then cuts again to the soldiers inside the vehicle, while terrorists yell at them. A still from footage showing the capture and abduction of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy at the Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023 (The Hostages Families Forum)
In a statement after the release of the video, President Isaac Herzog said he would continue to offer the families of hostages “strength and love.”
“The world must look at this cruel atrocity. Those who care about women’s rights must speak out. All those who believe in freedom must speak out, and do everything possible to bring all of the hostages home now,” he said.
PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “horrified” by the footage and vowed to do all he could to return the hostages home. “The cruelty of the Hamas terrorists only strengthens my determination to fight with all my might until Hamas is eliminated in order to ensure that what we saw this evening doesn’t happen ever again,” he wrote on X.
Many family members of the hostages have blamed Netanyahu and the government for foot-dragging that has prevented a deal to release their loved ones from being reached.
Several media commentators expressed bewilderment at how the terrorists did not appear to be in a rush to leave the base, spending time tormenting the soldiers, and slowly taking them to the vehicles undisturbed, without any sign of security forces coming to the rescue.
Nahal Oz was invaded by dozens of terrorists on October 7, and they spent some three hours at the base, Channel 12 said, without the IDF coming to the rescue, video was released ahead of a war cabinet meeting on Wednesday night and was declaredly aimed at pressuring ministers to step up efforts to reach a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Negotiations on a truce deal have been stalled since April. The only previous deal, in November, saw 105 hostages released during a weeklong truce.
“The disturbing video has been the reality of Agam, Daniella, Liri, Naama, Karina, and 123 other hostages for 229 days,” hostages Missing Families Forum said (statement). “Video is a damning testament to the nation’s failure to bring home the hostages, who forsaken for 229 days.”
Israeli govt must not waste even one more moment – it must return to the negotiating table today!” it added.
The parents’ reasoning and Relatives of the five said that the three minutes and ten seconds of broadcast footage was heavily censored, with their oversight, for publication.Eli Albag, Liri’s father, told Channel 12 News that the original footage is over 13 minutes long. The IDF Office is understood to have made full footage available to the families, allowed them to decide what to show to the public.
“This is the most sensitive version… and still terribly harsh,” said Albag. “We are exposing ourselves and our daughters. We went back and forth over and over about whether to release it. Three of the mothers have not seen the footage, are not prepared to see the footage, cannot bear to see the girls [in the footage].”
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Israel Inside October 7 Hamas atrocities Hamas hostages Hamas 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas war Kibbutz Nahal Oz IDF Israel Defense Forces.
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