Hamas’ armed wing released a video, on Monday, showing an Israeli-German hostage alive, the second such footage of him shared by the militants this month.
The Israeli campaign group Hostages and Missing Families Forum and the captive’s family identified him as Alon Ohel. He was abducted by Palestinian militants during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The family urged the media not to use his photograph or excerpts from the video.
In the video Ohel, 24, dressed in a black t-shirt, appeals to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the release of all captives still held in Gaza.
He is also heard urging his family to continue protesting against Netanyahu and his government in order to press for their release.
The clip also shows a militant holding a gun, also dressed in black, tapping Ohel’s shoulder.
The footage, released by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, shows Ohel speaking while watching a television screen displaying Netanyahu.
AFP was unable to immediately verify the video or the date it was filmed.
“Our family is shaken and in pain following the release of Alon’s video by Hamas,” Ohel’s parents, Idit and Kobi Ohel, said in a statement released by the forum.
“It’s evident that Alon is losing vision in his right eye, and he appears thin and distressed,” they said, and called for him to get immediate treatment from an an eye specialist.
They said that the fate of their son and other captives was in the hands of Netanyahu.
“On the eve of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), during these days of repentance, the fate of young Jewish lives – Israeli citizens – now rests in the hands of the prime minister and the cabinet,” their statement said.
“Do not break the heart of the people of Israel. The most important national message right now is bringing Alon and all the hostages home to their families.”
Ohel was set to start music studies after returning from a trip to Asia in the weeks before being abducted at the Supernova music festival during the Hamas attack.
He was captured when sheltering on Route 232, the only way out of the festival, with three other young men.
Hamas’s armed wing had released a similar video of Ohel on September 5, in which he appeared alongside another hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal.
Of the 251 hostages seized during the Hamas attack in October 2023, 47 are still in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
The attack itself resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has since killed at least 65,344 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
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