Hamas’ military wing on Saturday released a video of Liri Albag, one of around 250 people taken hostage by the group during the attack on Israel, as Israeli and Hamas officials held further indirect ceasefire talks through mediators in Qatar .
Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza nearly 15 months after Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 sparked Israel’s war on Gaza. Talks to free them stalled after a week-long truce in November 2023 that allowed the release of 105 Israeli and foreign prisoners.
Ms. Albag, 19, served in a lookout unit tasked with monitoring possible threats along the Gaza border. During the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, Palestinian fighters overran the military base where she served, killing more than 60 soldiers and kidnapping Ms. Albag and six other female soldiers.
The video released on Saturday was edited to show Ms Albag speaking for about three and a half minutes. Ms Albag said she had been held for more than 450 days, but this could not be definitively confirmed.
In a statement, Ms Albag’s family said that “her severe psychological distress is evident” in the video, and that the footage had “broken our hearts into pieces”. They asked leaders to “make decisions as if their children were there.”
“She is just a few dozen kilometers away from us, yet for 456 days we were unable to bring her home,” the family said.
Human rights groups have said Hamas’ practice of making and releasing videos of hostages constitutes inhumane treatment that could amount to a war crime. Israeli officials have labeled the practice a form of psychological warfare.
Both sides are under pressure from the new Trump administration to reach agreements on a ceasefire and hostage release as soon as possible. President-elect Donald J. Trump has warned that there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY” unless the hostages are released by his inauguration on January 20.
But Trump did not explain in detail how to resolve the standoff between Israel and Hamas. Both sides have made seemingly irreconcilable demands in their months of negotiations, undermining numerous diplomatic efforts by the Biden administration.
On Friday evening, Hamas said its officials were resuming meetings in the Qatari capital, Doha, to reach a ceasefire agreement with Israel to free the hostages. In a statement, the group reiterated its long-standing calls for Israel to end the war and withdraw from Gaza.
Israel said earlier this week it would also send a delegation of mid-level security officials to meet mediators in Qatar. But it is not at all clear whether Israeli leaders are willing to meet Hamas’s conditions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that the war will not end until the destruction of Hamas in Gaza.
The families of the Israeli hostages fear that each day of their loved ones’ captivity could be their last. After the video featuring Ms. Albag was released, the headquarters of the Hostages’ Families Forum, an advocacy group, called on both sides to meet the deadline set by Trump.
“Every day in the Hamas hellscape of Gaza represents an immediate risk of death for the living hostages,” the group said in a statement. “We are sixteen days away from the ultimatum issued by President-elect Trump. We must not miss this historic window of opportunity.”
Israel continued its military campaign in Gaza on Saturday. The enclave’s Civil Defense, a rescue agency under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, has reported multiple airstrikes in which at least 11 people have been killed and more than 20 are missing under rubble across the enclave. In its totals the agency does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.