The Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Monday evening released a video of Hamas terrorists abducting three Israeli men, including a dual U.S. citizen, from a bomb shelter near the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7.
The video clip, captured by Hamas bodycams, is about two minutes long and shows the abduction of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eliya Cohen and Or Levy from the area of Kibbutz Re’im near the Gaza border.
JNS decided not to incorporate the video into this story due to its graphic nature.
“Hersh, Eliya, and Or were taken alive, and they must return alive, today. Every day that passes puts the hostages at greater risk and diminishes our chances of bringing them back safely,” said the forum.
The group represents the families of the hostages taken to Gaza during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught on the northwestern Negev. One hundred sixteen remain in Gaza out of the roughly 250 kidnapped on Oct. 7.
Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old dual American-Israeli citizen, entered the bomb shelter on the morning of Oct. 7 as the Hamas attack got underway, together with a close friend, Aner Shapira. The latter was killed when terrorists converged on the tiny space, threw grenades in and sprayed the room with machine gunfire. Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage, his left arm blown off at the elbow.
Or Levy, 33, a father of a toddler son, arrived at the music festival with his wife, Einav, at 6:20 a.m., minutes before the invasion began. They entered the same shelter where Einav was murdered and Or was taken hostage.
Eliya Cohen, 26, was at the rave with his girlfriend, Ziv Abud, and two of her relatives. When the attack started, the four ran to the same shelter as Goldberg-Polin and the Levys. Abud’s relatives were murdered there. Eliya was taken captive; Ziv survived, buried under a pile of corpses.
“I was buried under the bodies for six hours, and after six hours a man came to look for his son. And when he came to look for his son, based on the location his son had sent him, he found me and five other people,” she told Reuters earlier this year.
Or Levy’s brother Michael Levy told JNS on Monday, “Our family saw this footage first six months ago. We received it through the army. It took us this long to get their approval to release it to the public.
“We received approval to release the footage three days ago. Tomorrow, Or and Einav’s only child, Almog, will celebrate his third birthday with both his parents either murdered or held captive by Hamas. Almog needs his father,” Levy said.
“Through this footage, we wanted to remind people that the hostages are still there, they are still alive and we have no time. We hope to create more pressure and arrive at an agreement as soon as possible,” he added.
‘Nearly 200 days’
In late April, Hamas released a propaganda video showing Goldberg-Polin. The footage marked the first proof of life since he was abducted, except for a video of him being marched into a Hamas vehicle.
The three-minute recording was made for propaganda purposes and was undated, but Goldberg-Polin said in it that he had been a captive for “nearly 200 days,” suggesting it had been filmed recently.
Last month, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum made public a video showing the kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces field observers Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy.
The footage, taken by terrorists’ body cameras, revealed the violence experienced by five of the seven spotters taken from the Nahal Oz base. Another 15 field observers were murdered during the attack there.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “shocked by the video showing the kidnapping of our dear observers.
“We will continue to do everything to return them home. The brutality of these Hamas terrorists only reinforces my determination to fight with full strength until Hamas is eliminated, to ensure that what we saw tonight will never be repeated,” he said.
Speaking at the Knesset on Monday evening, Netanyahu vowed:
“First, we will not end the war until we return all of our hostages. … We are committed to the Israeli proposal, which President [Joe] Biden has welcomed. Our position has not changed;
“Second, which does not contradict the first [promise], we will not end the war until we eliminate Hamas and until we return the residents of the south and the north securely to their homes;
“And third—at any price and in any way, we will thwart Iran’s intentions to destroy us.”