Palestinian Hamas group on Monday released a new video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages who were taken to Gaza on October 7.
The video showed a woman hostage named as Noa Argamani, 26, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed.
It was not clear when the video was taken.
Hamas had released another video on Sunday showing Argamani along with two hostages who were seen alive.
The pair -- widely named in the media as Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itay Svirsky, 38 -- were the same men announced as having been killed in Monday's video.
In a statement released with Monday's video, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said the two men were killed in "the Zionist army's bombing".
Israel's army called Hamas's release of the video a "brutal use of innocent hostages".
Military spokesman Daniel Hagari rejected Hamas's claim the hostages, including Svirsky, were killed by Israeli forces.
"This is a lie by Hamas," he said.
"The building in which they were kept was not a target and it was not attacked by our forces," Hagari told reporters.
But he added: "We know that we hit targets near the location where they were held" and an investigation is underway.
It is "examining the pictures that Hamas is disseminating, alongside additional information that we have," Hagari said.
In the unprecedented October 7 attack that triggered the Israel-Hamas war, Hamas seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israeli officials say remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.
Last month the military announced that soldiers killed three hostages by mistake, believing they posed a threat.
On Sunday Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said many of the hostages are likely to have been killed recently.
"The enemy's leadership and army bear full responsibility," he said.
Shortly after the video's release on Monday, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a news conference that Hamas was applying "psychological pressure" to the families of the hostages.
The army was helping the families, he said, and keeping them up to date with any developments.
"Hamas has been hit hard by the IDF (military)," he said.
"What's left for it is to touch a sensitive nerve in Israeli society through acts of psychological abuse against the family members."
Ruling out any ceasefire in Gaza, Gallant reiterated that the only way to get the hostages back home was by continuing to apply "military pressure".
Otherwise, he said, "nobody will talk to us" and we "will not succeed in reaching any agreements."
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
https://ift.tt/mu5Q3yn
0 Comments