Three Israeli female captives in the Gaza Strip have sent a televised message to Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his government accusing them of seeking to kill the Israeli prisoners and demanding them to accept a prisoner exchange deal.
Al-Qassam Brigades the armed wing of Hamas released on Monday a video of three Israeli women held in Gaza in which one of them spoke sharply as she addressed a message on behalf of other Israeli captives.
The video description provided by the Brigades read: “A number of Zionist prisoners held by Al-Qassam send a message to Netanyahu and the Zionist government.”
Only one woman in the video spoke. Gazing directly at the camera she said they had been in captivity for 23 days suggesting the video was filmed on Sunday or Monday just over three weeks since Palestinian resistance fighters stormed southern Israel on October 7.
Addressing Netanyahu directly she accused the Israeli government of leaving her community defenseless during the Hamas operation. “We are getting punished for your political national neglect” she said. “Nobody came. Nobody heard us.”
She said there was supposed to be a ceasefire. “We are innocent citizens. Citizens who pay taxes to the state of Israel. You want to kill us all. You want to kill us all using the Israeli army … It isn’t enough that Israeli citizens were killed.”
She pleaded for an exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. “Let their citizens go let their prisoners go. Free us. Free all of us. Let us return to our families now.” At the end she screamed “now” several times.
Hamas has recently offered to release the Israeli hostages in return for an estimated 5000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails but Netanyahu rejected any swap deal.
Instead Netanyahu claimed the bombardment of Gaza would pressure Hamas into making concessions although its armed wing affirmed that at least 50 Israeli prisoners had already been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
