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Hamas has released a video of two Israeli hostages seized from a music festival in Israel in October 2023, and one says he is being held in Gaza City where the Israeli military has launched a major offensive to wipe out the militant group.
Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel are two of 48 people still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with 20 thought to be still alive.
Palestinian militants took 251 hostages into the enclave after its cross-border attack on southern Israeli communities in 2023 that killed about 1200 people, triggering the war.
Local health authorities report that over 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, leaving much of the area devastated and its inhabitants facing a humanitarian disaster.
The video was edited and featured an exhausted-looking Gilboa-Dalal speaking for about three-and-a-half minutes.
He is seen in the back seat of a car for some of the video dated 28 August.
The Reuters news agency could not independently determine when the video was recorded.
Gilboa-Dalal says that he is being held in Gaza City along with several other hostages and that he is afraid of being killed by Israel’s offensive on the city.
Towards the end of the clip he is shown meeting another captive, Alon Ohel. It is the first video to be released of Ohel since he was kidnapped.
US-based Human Rights Watch has condemned Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip for releasing videos of hostages, calling it inhumane treatment that amounts to a war crime.
Israeli officials have described the videos as psychological warfare.
Gaza City’s Mushtaha tower targeted
On Friday, the Israeli military bombed a high-rise building in the city’s west that it said was being used by Hamas for surveillance and that civilians had been warned beforehand.
Palestinians said the strike targeted the Mushtaha tower in Rimal, an upscale neighbourhood before the war.
Video footage captured the Mushtaha Tower in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of the city crumbling after a large explosion at its base, which sent a dense cloud of smoke and dust soaring into the air. Source: EPA / Haitham Imad
The military did not provide any evidence that militants were using the building.
Photos of the building taken before Friday’s strike showed that its roof was already heavily damaged from earlier raids.
The building’s management issued a statement saying that it was being used for Palestinians displaced by the war, denying that it had been used for anything other than civilian purposes.
Across the strip, 30 Palestinians were killed by the military on Friday, including 20 in Gaza City, Gaza’s health ministry said.
The military has been carrying out heavy strikes on the city for weeks, advancing through outer suburbs, and this week, forces were within a few kilometres of the city centre.
