Hamas on Friday released a video of two hostages being driven around Gaza City, in a move apparently aimed at swaying Israeli public opinion as the military ramps up its assault on the city.
The propaganda video shows captive Guy Gilboa-Dalal in a car in several locations in Gaza City, including outside the Red Crescent headquarters. Apparently filmed last week, it reveals damaged buildings through the car window as the unseen driver leads the car through parts of the city. CNN has geolocated the video to Gaza City.
Toward the end of the video a second hostage, Alon Ohel, 22, appears alongside Gilboa-Dalal in the car. The two embrace and appear surprised to see each other. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you,” Gilboa-Dalal says several times in the video.
It was a rare Hamas hostage video in which captives were filmed above ground. Gilboa-Dalal, who was likely filmed under duress, says in the clip that the date of filming is August 28 and that he has been a hostage for 22 months.
The release of the video came on the 700th day of the war, which was marked by protests across Israel calling for a ceasefire deal that would see the hostages released.
It also comes as the Israeli government insists on pressing ahead with its assault on Gaza City despite objections from hostage families, much of the international community and the military. The offensive is expected to displace nearly a million Palestinians and has already exacted a heavy humanitarian toll. Health authorities said at least seven children were killed in strikes on Gaza City overnight Thursday.
Last month, Hamas accepted a phased hostage deal presented by mediators Qatar and Egypt that it says is almost identical to an offer made by the United States. But Israel has dismissed it, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he’ll accept nothing short of a comprehensive agreement that sees all hostages released and Hamas disarmed.
In the nearly four-minute video, Gilboa-Dalal addresses the planned Israeli takeover and occupation of Gaza City as he pleads for the Israeli government to bring him home.
“I heard that you’re going to carry an assault on Gaza City, and this idea is giving me nightmares. What does it mean?” Gilboa-Dalal asks. “It means we’ll die here.”
He says there are eight other hostages also held in Gaza City, who “are going to die here” if the offensive moves forward. CNN can’t confirm the claim that eight hostages are in Gaza City.
Gilboa-Dalal also calls on Israelis to demonstrate against the government and to demand an end to the war that would bring home the remaining 48 hostages, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive.
“We just want this to end. We want to go back to our families. We’re found adjacent to the military. We’re scared, there are explosions here, gunfire. Please return us,” he says.
Gilboa-Dalal was last seen in a Hamas propaganda video released in February, in which he is forced to watch other hostages being freed during an agreed exchange between Hamas and Israel.
On Friday morning, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum criticized the escalating assault on Gaza City. In a statement, the hostage families said they were briefed by the Israeli military that the offensive would increase the risk to hostages since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) lacks precise information about their location.
“There is a deal on the table – this is what will bring back the last hostage, this is what will end the war,” the forum said in a statement.
Smoke rises as a building is hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Friday. – Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Military closes in on Gaza City
On Thursday, the IDF said it already controls 40% of Gaza City – along with more than 70% of the entire besieged territory. The operation will “expand and intensify” in the coming days, according to spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin.
Residents in Gaza City told CNN of horrifying nights as Israel bombed the city from above and ground forces pushed into the outskirts of the city.
More than a dozen people, including at least seven children, were killed in strikes on Gaza City overnight Thursday, a spokesperson for Al-Shifa Hospital said. Videos posted to social media showed doctors and aid workers treating bloodied and burned children and small bodies on stretchers being rushed to hospital.
A firefighter from the Gaza Civil Defense said he saw a mother crawling on the floor, searching for her children as her hands burned. He was able to save the mother and her son and daughter, who were charred from the flames, and brought them all to Al-Shifa Hospital.
“I have not and will not be able to overcome this situation for the rest of my life, and the screams of the mother and her children will continue to echo in my mind,” the firefighter said.
CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.
On Wednesday, a UNICEF spokeswoman said Gaza’s children are “fighting for survival” in Gaza City, which has become a city of “fear, flight and funerals.”
“The last refuge for families in the northern Gaza Strip is fast becoming a place where childhood cannot survive,” Tess Ingram said in New York after a nine-day visit to the city.
Relatives mourn their loss after their loved ones were killed in Israeli attacks on various areas of Gaza City on Friday. Bodies are brought to Al Shifa Hospital to be prepared for the burial process. – Khames Alrefi/Anadolu/Getty Images
Meanwhile, a top European Union official slammed Europe’s inability to stop a “genocide” in Gaza, the first time a senior EU politician has described the conflict as such.
“The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to speak and act with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities,” Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, said on Thursday in Paris.
Responding to her comments, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry accused Ribera of “baseless allegations.” Oren Marmorstein posted on X Thursday that Ribera had made herself a “mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda.”
‘Death in my own home is better than displacement’
With Israeli forces closing in, fear has become a constant reality for many of the Palestinians within the enclave’s largest city.
“Last night, the Israeli army bombed four houses on the same street as ours,” said Sabhi al-Rantisi, who lives in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. “It was a very difficult night.”
Al-Rantisi says his wife and two children fled to central Gaza, but he refuses to be forced out, at least for now.
Only 70,000 Palestinians have so far evacuated Gaza City out of approximately one million people, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday, making up less than 10% of the total population. The overwhelming majority have not moved.
“We haven’t asked formally people to move,” said the official from Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) in a briefing. “The large-scale operation hasn’t begun yet.”
Abu Yasser Al-Khour, a 51-year-old father of six, said he will not flee again.
“I am staying in my home and will not be displaced again, until my last breath, even if it means death, because we are exhausted from displacement,” he told CNN.
A shortage of water, medicine, and cash has gripped Gaza City, he said. His work as a driver disappeared long ago, but like most of city’s population, he refuses to leave.
“Life in displacement is unbearable, fetching water, collecting wood for cooking,” he said. “In summer we die from heat, in winter we die from cold. In every case, death in my own home is better than displacement.”
CNN’s Joseph Ataman, Kareem Khadder, Abeer Salman and Eyad Kourdi contributed to this report.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
