Orphaned, scared, tied up and with bloodied faces, female soldiers of the Israeli army IDF sit against the wall of the Nahal Oz military base, near the border with Gaza. It is October 7, 2023, and about forty fighters have just entered the base as part of the large-scale attack that Hamas unfolded in Israel that day.
The Forum for Hostages and Missing Families, an Israeli organization pushing for the return of kidnapped Israelis on October 7, released a video on Wednesday showing shocking images of the female soldiers abducted during the attack. The images come from body cameras of the Hamas fighters, which were given to the families of the hostages by the Israeli government. They gave permission to the forum to publish the images. According to the organization, the images have been updated to hide the most gruesome details.
Seven women were abducted during the attack. One of them was freed by the IDF 23 days later, while another woman was found dead in Gaza. Five other women still live in captivity. These are Liri Elbag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa and Naama Levy, who all worked as ‘spotters’ for the IDF. Their job was to patrol the border with Gaza.
The video lasts three minutes and shows the young women in pajamas. “Dogs, we’re stepping on you,” it sounds at the beginning. Another Hamas fighter points to them and says, “Here are the girls.” According to the translation provided by the forum, that was said in the context of their ability to conceive. “You are so beautiful,” the man continues.
Two of the women – Levy and Elbag – try to talk to their attackers in the video. “I have friends in Palestine,” says Levy desperately. Elbag asks the men if any of them speak English, after which they shout at her to be quiet and to sit on the ground. Later in the video, the Hamas fighters can be seen taking the women to a vehicle and driving away with them.
The families of the five want to use the video to increase pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to bring the hostages back to Israel. “We decided to release the video now and expose ourselves, to undress on television, and we do it because we want our government to wake up,” Eli Elbag, Liri’s father, told Channel 12 News.
The forum and the families want Netanyahu to make a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Of the 252 people taken as hostages on October 7, 124 are still in Gaza. 37 of them are said to be dead according to the Israeli army. In November, a ceasefire led to the release of 105 Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The images “will strengthen my resolve to fight with all my might until Hamas is eliminated, to ensure that what we saw tonight never happens again,” Netanyahu said on his Telegram account. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza began.