Hamas’ military wing released a video on Saturday of Liri Albag, one of about 250 people taken hostage by the group in its attack on Israel, as Israeli and Hamas officials held further rounds of indirect ceasefire talks through mediators in Qatar.
About 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, nearly 15 months since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks that triggered Israel’s war on Gaza. Talks on their release have been stalled since a week-long ceasefire in November 2023 that allowed the release of 105 Israeli and foreign prisoners.
Ms. Albag, 19, served in a surveillance unit tasked with monitoring potential threats along the border with Gaza. During the Hamas-led offensive in southern Israel, Palestinian fighters overran the military base where she served, killing more than 60 soldiers and abducting Ms Albag and six other female soldiers.
The video released on Saturday was edited and showed Ms. Albag speaking for about three and a half minutes. Ms. Albag said she had been held for over 450 days, but this could not be definitively confirmed.
In a statement, Ms Albag’s family said her “severe psychological distress is evident” in the video and the footage “has broken our hearts”. They asked leaders to “make decisions as if your children were there.”
“She is only tens of kilometers away from us, but for 456 days we have not been able to bring her home,” the family said.
Human rights groups have said Hamas’ practice of making and releasing videos of hostages was inhumane treatment that could amount to a war crime. Israeli officials have labeled this practice a form of psychological warfare.
Both sides are under pressure from the incoming Trump administration to reach an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages as soon as possible. President-elect Donald J. Trump has warned there will be “HELL TO PAY” if the hostages are not released by his inauguration on January 20.
But Mr. Trump has not detailed how he would break the deadlock between Israel and Hamas. The two sides have expressed seemingly irreconcilable demands in their months of negotiations, thwarting the Biden administration’s numerous diplomatic efforts.
On Friday night, Hamas said its officials were resuming meetings in the Qatari capital, Doha, to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel to release the hostages. In a statement, the group reiterated its long-standing demands that Israel end the war and withdraw from Gaza.
Israel said earlier this week it was also sending a delegation of mid-level security officials to meet with mediators in Qatar. But it is not clear whether Israel’s leaders are willing to meet Hamas’s terms. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that the war will not end until Hamas is destroyed in Gaza.
Families of Israeli hostages fear that every day their loved ones remain in captivity could be their last. After the release of the video featuring Ms. Albag, the Hostage Families Forum Headquarters, an advocacy group, called on both sides to respect Mr. Trump’s deadline.
“Every day in the Hamas hellhole in Gaza poses an immediate risk of death to the living hostages,” the group said in a statement. “Sixteen days remain until the ultimatum issued by President-elect Trump. We must not miss this historic window of opportunity.”
Israel continued its military campaign in Gaza on Saturday. The enclave’s Civil Defense, a rescue agency under the Hamas-run interior ministry, reported multiple airstrikes in which at least 11 people were killed and more than 20 disappeared under rubble across the enclave. The agency does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its totality. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
