An entrepreneur offered a financial reward on Saturday to Gazans who return living hostages to Israel, as flyers dropped over the Gaza Strip purportedly by the IDF offered immunity to those who lay down arms.
In a video message delivered in English with Arabic subtitles, former SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum promised a financial reward to anyone who returned living hostages to Israel.
“This year was a terrible year. It’s time to wrap things up, it’s time to move on,” he said in the video that was posted online.
Referencing Netanyahu’s promise of immunity, Birnbaum said that in addition, “anyone who delivers from Gaza a living Israeli prisoner will receive $100,000 that would be paid either by cash or by bitcoin as you prefer.”
He added that the offer would only be valid until midnight on Wednesday night and provided a phone number where he could be reached over Telegram or WhatsApp.
“Don’t wait. It’s time for you to take control of your life and build a future for yourself, for your family, and for your community. Do it today,” he said.
Speaking to Channel 12 news on Sunday, Birnbaum said his offer stemmed from his desire to do more to help the hostages.
“For more than a year, I’ve been asking myself what I can do for these families, for the hostages, and now I see my chance, so I decided to seek out the hostage holders myself and make them an offer they cannot refuse,” he told the outlet.
He added that in the first 12 hours since he had posted the video, he had already received more than 50 messages in Arabic.
Many of them, he added, were from people issuing threats, cursing him, or sharing pornographic content, which he said was expected, but some were potentially genuine and were being investigated by security services.
Birnbaum also said he had been approached by other people who wanted to help and that some had offered to add to his financial rewards, but he didn’t say who they were.
The offer came as leaflets purportedly dropped by Israel Defense Forces planes in southern Gaza on Saturday showed a picture of slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, with the message “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza,” and urged the release of the hostages, echoing language used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days earlier.
“Yahya Sinwar has ruined your lives. He hid in a dark tunnel and was eliminated when he attempted to flee in panic. Whoever lays down their weapons and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” read the Arabic leaflet, according to images that circulated online.
Though attributed to the IDF by Reuters and bearing the army’s logo in the corner, the leaflets were designed differently to previous notices from the Israeli military circulated in both Gaza and more recently in southern Lebanon, which are often also published on social media.
The leaflets also pointed Gazans to a Telegram channel with no messages and two Israeli cellphone numbers, but didn’t specify who could supposedly be reached by calling or messaging them.
The messages’ wording was similar to a statement made by Netanyahu on Thursday after Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers operating in Rafah, in the south of Gaza near the Egyptian border, the previous day.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
In the many months of failure to reach another hostage deal, Sinwar was often said to be the obstacle to an agreement that would see the remaining hostages returned, leading many to hope that his killing on Thursday could pave the way for a deal to be reached.
Others, however, were not so optimistic with some hostages’ relatives expressing their concerns that with Sinwar gone, there would be no one in Hamas to negotiate with.
Israeli reports on Saturday also said Israel was concerned that Hamas would murder hostages as revenge for Sinwar’s killing, and Netanyahu was said to have convened emergency security consultations at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss how to prevent this.
Agencies contributed to this report.