The Wall Street Journal reported that Hamas had its hostages recite a script in a video urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate a ceasefire.
Released hostage Aviva Siegel described how Hamas ordered her to take part in photo shoots and scripted video shoots, often against a backdrop of abuse and poor living conditions, to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Hamas war. According to Speaking to the WSJ, Israeli hostage negotiators and officials called the tactic a form of “psychological terrorism.” (Related article: “Enough is enough”: Hamas kills six hostages in Gaza, sparking protests and strikes across Israel)
“'We never said you were 62,' 'We never said you were from Kfar Aza,' and 'We never said Bibi needed to be brought back,'” Siegel said her captors told her, according to the Journal. “I was always forgetting something, and I had to keep repeating it.”
Her captors would sometimes film her while she ate, among other things, to try to make her look more presentable for the cameras, according to the WSJ.
“We had to sit next to them and smile and say it was OK just to get a photo,” Siegel told the WSJ.
According to the WSJ, under international law, producing these videos under duress could be considered a war crime. Israeli media initially did not broadcast the videos, but as dissatisfaction among the hostage families grew, some began airing them in an effort to keep the hostage issue alive.
“Hamas is taking advantage of public sentiment that is much larger and starting to become much louder,” Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin told the Journal. “Hamas wants this war to end, and they think this will put pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
Flames burn in a building bombed by Israel in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in the north of Gaza City on September 3, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas continues in the Palestinian territories. (Omar al-Qattaa/AFP) (Omar al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images)
Families of the hostages seen in the video say it's painful to watch but gives them hope that their loved ones may still be alive.
“This is trauma and torture in slow motion,” Rachel Goldberg Pollin told the Journal about the video, which features the son of the deceased American-Israeli, Hirsch. “The irony is that many of the hostage families say they would do anything to get their hands on that video.”
In May, Israel released a then-unreleased video of kidnapped 8-year-old Ella Eliakim pleading with Prime Minister Netanyahu for her release after she was released as part of a ceasefire agreement in November, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ reports that the video makers have a deep understanding of Israeli society — one of the producers Siegel met speaks Hebrew — and that the hostages were forced to make the videos from the start of their captivity, and that Hamas has kept them in an archive.
Chen Almog Goldstein, who was held hostage with her three children, was photographed inside a tunnel in the Gaza Strip on the second day of her captivity, with Hamas providing her family with Israeli snacks, the WSJ reported.
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