This attack led to the death of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, most civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 58 are still retained in Gaza, 34 of which were declared dead by the Israeli army.
In retaliation, Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, and launched an air campaign and a major terrestrial offensive which devastated the cramped territory and made at least 52,495 dead, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Ministry of Health of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN.
On Saturday, the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, an armed branch of the Hamas, broadcast a recording in which an elongated man appears, his head and the left arm covered with bandages with brown tasks.
– “Prisoner number 24” –
Speaking of Hebrew with a Russian accent, the man in the video presents himself as “Prisoner number 24” and suggests that he was injured in an Israeli bombardment.
AFP, like most Israeli media, has identified hostage as Maxim Herkin, who will be 37 years old at the end of May, but has no way of checking his state of health.
His family published a press release asking the media not to broadcast the video.
Speaking under stress like all the hostages appearing in previous videos, the man refers to the fact that Israel will soon celebrate the anniversary of his creation. This suggests that the video was shot shortly before May 1, the date on which Israel celebrated according to the Jewish calendar the 77th anniversary of its creation, May 15, 1948.
Mr. Herkin, who had emigrated to Israel with his mother, was abducted on October 7, 2023 at the Rave-Party Nova, theater of the biggest massacre committed that day by Hamas fighters.
Father of a little girl, he wrote to his mother just before his kidnapping: “Everything is fine. I’m going home.”
On Saturday evening, a few thousand Israelis brandishing portraits of hostages again gathered in Tel Aviv to claim from their government that it acts to obtain their release.
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu says that military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to release hostages. Since March 18, Hamas has published several hostage videos and affirms that Israel puts their lives in danger by continuing its daily bombings on Gaza.
– “a light, an explosion” –
On Saturday before dawn, 11 Palestinians were killed in a “bombardment of the home of the Al-Bayram family in Khan Younès (South),” Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for civil defense in Gaza told AFP. Among the eight people identified, all of the same extended family, are a one-year-old girl and boy, as well as one month older, he said. In the light of torches, rescuers and civilians searched with bare hands in the rubble to extract victims, according to AFP images. One two leaves by carrying the inanimate body of a very young child.
“I saw a brilliant light, then there was an explosion and the dust has everything covered. We couldn’t see anything. Our windows were blown away and our rooms destroyed,” said Fayka Abou Hatab, a neighbor.
The Israeli army has confirmed the strike indicating without further details that it had targeted “a Hamas terrorist”.
Israel besieges the approximately 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and has been preventing the entry of all humanitarian aid in this territory since March 2, vital for the population faced with a catastrophic humanitarian situation and exposed to famine according to UN officials. Despite the persistent international calls to authorize the entry of the aid, Israel refuses by accusing Hamas of diverting it.
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