“Liri is alive and must come back alive!” », Launched Liri Albag's family on Saturday to Benyamin Netanyahu, after watching a video of their daughter, broadcast by the armed branch of Hamas. The young girl was kidnapped while she was doing her military service as a sentry at the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel. She was kidnapped on October 7, 2023 during the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement carried out in Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The video, approximately 3 minutes and 30 seconds long, whose date of recording cannot be verified, shows a young woman speaking in Hebrew and calling on the Israeli government to act to secure her release.
Kidnapped with six other people
The family of the hostage, Liri Albag, a 19-year-old Israeli woman, authorized the publication of screenshots of the video, said the Families Forum, the main association of relatives of hostages held in the Gaza Strip .
“Today’s video broke our hearts. This is not the daughter and sister we know. She is not doing well, her serious psychological distress is evident. We saw our heroic Liri survive and beg for her life. She is a few dozen kilometers from us, and yet, for 456 days, we have not managed to bring her home,” her loved ones react on the social network X.
“We appeal to the Prime Minister, world leaders and all decision-makers: it is time to make decisions as if your own children were there! Liri is alive and must come back alive! It only depends on you! You must not miss this current opportunity to bring them back. All,” continues his family.
A gathering in Tel Aviv like every Saturday
Stationed at the Nahal Oz military post, she was kidnapped with six other people, recalls The Times of Israel. One of them was rescued and another was found dead after being murdered in captivity, according to the Israeli newspaper.
The Families Forum said in a statement that this sign of life was “hard and undeniable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.” A rally for the release of the hostages is to be held in the evening in Tel Aviv, like every Saturday for more than a year, as well as in Jerusalem and other localities in Israel.
No more truce since the end of November 2023
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed movement that participated in the October 7 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, have released hostage videos in the past. The broadcast of the images on Saturday comes as Hamas announced on Friday the resumption of indirect negotiations with Israel in Doha for a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel has not confirmed this resumption.
Since the start of the war, only one one-week truce has been observed, in November 2023, during which 105 hostages were released as well as 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
During the October 7 attack which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians according to a count based on official figures, 251 people were kidnapped. A total of 96 hostages remain in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
