The families of female Israeli soldiers captured from an Israeli base on Oct. 7, 2023, approved the release of footage this week, showing Hamas terrorists holding them at gunpoint after storming the base.
Footage Shows Capture of Israeli Soldiers
Bring Them Home Now said the video was edited to exclude some of the most graphic content, such as the bodies of other Israeli soldiers killed in the attack. The edited video provides a suggested English closed caption for comments between some of the Hamas fighters and Israeli captives that took place in Arabic and broken English, over the din of shouting from other Hamas terrorists at the base.“I have friends in Palestine,” one of the female Israeli soldiers can be clearly heard pleading in English when face to face with the Hamas terrorists early on in the video. Moments later a second Israeli female pleads in English for “someone who speaks English” to address them.
In one segment of the newly-released footage, a Hamas fighter speaks in Arabic, with the closed captions reading, “Our brothers died because of you, we will shoot you all.”
Another video segment shows a Hamas terrorist speaking to the girls in broken English, with the video caption reading, “you are so beautiful,” though some social media commentators have argued that the captioning is again dubious and that the Hamas fighter instead said, “no no you’re no beautiful.”
Video Renews Hamas’s Sexual Violence Fears
Ayelet Levy Shachar, who is the mother of Ms. Levy, has previously identified her daughter as one of the individuals with blood covering the seat of her pants. In a December essay for The Free Press, Ms. Shachar alluded to her daughter’s capture while raising the prospect of hostage takers committing acts of sexual violence against the Oct. 7 captives.“There’s a reason why women and children were prioritized first for release: younger women are at greater risk for further trauma. Just as women and girls are more vulnerable to more forms of violence, they are also more vulnerable to suffering from infections and pregnancy from sexual violence,” Ms. Shachar wrote in her December essay.
Salama Marouf, a spokesman for the Hamas political leadership in the Gaza Strip, issued a statement on Thursday accusing Israeli officials of spreading false claims accusing Hamas of committing sexual violence on Oct. 7. Mr. Marouf’s comments were published in the Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa Channel on Telegram.
In a statement shared with Reuters, a Hamas official said the new video shows “the female soldiers were treated according to the ethics of our resistance and no mistreatment of those soldiers in this unit was proven.”