The Ezzedine Al-Qassam brigades, a army branch of Hamas, published a video on Saturday afternoon showing a Russian-Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip and apparently injured.
In this recording of more than four minutes appears an elongated man, the skull and the left arm covered with bandages with brown tasks.
Speaking under stress
Speaking Hebrew with a Russian accent, man presents himself as “Prisoner number 24” And suggests that he was injured in an Israeli bombardment. AFP, like most of the Israeli media, has identified the hostage as Maxim Herkin, who will be 37 years old at the end of the month, but has no way of checking his state of health. His family published a press release asking the media not to broadcast Hamas’ video.
Speaking under constraint as all the hostages appearing in the videos of the al-Qassam brigades or other Palestinian armed groups, the young man refers to the fact that Israel will soon celebrate the birthday of his independence, suggesting that the video was turned shortly before May 1, the date on which the Hebrew State celebrated according to the Jewish calendar the 77th anniversary of its creation, May 15, 1948. From Ukraine, Mr. Herkin had emigrated to Israel with his mother. It was removed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 at La Rave-Party Nova.
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“I come home”
Father of a little girl, he had written to his mother just before his abduction: “Everything is fine. I come home. ” He appeared in a video broadcast by the Al-Qassam brigades on April 5, with another hostage, with a small bandage with a right wrist and a dressing at the cheek and ear. After two months of truce with Hamas in Gaza and several weeks of unsuccessful negative negotiations on how to extend it, Israel resumed on March 18 its air bombardments followed by land operations in the territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to release the hostages it still has.
The attack on October 7 led to the death of 1218 people on the Israeli side, for 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. Hamas also retains the body of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
Since the end of the truce, Hamas has published several hostage videos. These new images are disseminated while the indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel via the mediation of Qatar and Egypt for the release of hostages and a cease-fire in Gaza trampled.
