‘You want us to die, you want army to kill us,’ Israeli captives tell Netanyahu

A screenshot from a video released by Hamas shows three Israeli captives in the besieged Gaza Strip, October 30, 2023.

Hamas has released a video of three captured Israeli women in the besieged Gaza Strip voicing outrage at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for declining to agree to a swap deal and a ceasefire in the wake of the October 7 Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the largest military campaign in decades by the Gaza-based resistance groups against the occupiers.

In the video published on Monday, the three captives, who are among the more than 200 Israelis held in Gaza since October 7, angrily appeal to Netanyahu to release them “right now.”

One of the women, who spoke in Hebrew, said the Israeli prime minister failed to prevent the surprise attack on October 7 and is currently failing to rescue the prisoners and captives by agreeing to a ceasefire.

“We know that there was supposed to be a ceasefire. You were supposed to release all of us. You made a commitment to release all of us,” the Israeli captive said in the video released by the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

“We are innocent citizens… You want to kill us all; you are killing us, you want us to die and you want the army to kill us. You killed many Israelis. Let us go now… Let us return to our families now!”

Hamas and its fellow resistance groups based in the Gaza Strip captured around 250 Israeli soldiers and settlers during Operation al-Aqsa Storm. Following the operation, Abu Ubaida, the Qassam spokesman, said 200 of the captives were being held by the brigades, while the rest were kept by other Palestinian resistance factions.

Recently, the brigades announced that around 50 of the captives have been killed in the war the regime launched on Gaza following the operation.

The Israeli regime announced the start of a ground incursion into the besieged Palestinian territory on October 27.

Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to its decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians on October 7. The glorious operation ignited Israel’s bloody war machine.

Israel has blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis. It has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south. However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south.

According to the health ministry in Gaza, Israel has killed 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children, since October 7.