Hamas releases video of injured hostage

JERUSALEM (AFP) — The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video Saturday showing an Israeli-Russian hostage who appeared to have been injured in a strike on the Palestinian territory.

In the undated four-minute video, the hostage, wearing bandages on his head and left arm spoke in Hebrew, implying he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Israeli media identified the hostage as Russian-Israeli Maxim Herkin, who turns 37 a the end of May. His family urged media not to disseminate the video.

He referred to himself only as “Prisoner 24” in the footage and was not identified by Hamas.

He was shown lying on the ground and referred to Israel’s Independence Day celebrations on Thursday as upcoming, suggesting the video was filmed shortly beforehand.

AFP was unable to determine the health of Herkin, who gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by Hamas, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free the remaining captives.

Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel. The army says 34 of them are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.

Camp strike kills babies

Gaza’s civil defense agency said Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people, including three babies up to a year old.

Civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal reported 11 killed “after the bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in the Khan Yunis camp” in southern Gaza at around 3 a.m.

Bassal told AFP that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one-year-olds, and a month-old baby.

An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the strike to AFP, saying the attack targeted a “terrorist Hamas member,” without giving further details.

At the scene, rescue workers and residents searched through the rubble with their bare hands, illuminating the destruction with hand-held torches.

One rescuer carried the lifeless body of an infant from the wreckage, footage captured by an AFP journalist showed.