The families of five hostage surveillance soldiers announced that they will release images from the women’s first days held in Gaza at a press conference on Tuesday at 7 p.m., after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to push for the hostages’ release.
The images will apparently show Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy, all of whom are still held by Hamas in the Strip after they were kidnapped by terrorists from the Nahal Oz base on October 7.
According to Channel 12 news, the families received the photos, which show their daughters being held in a home in Gaza a few months ago, dressed in clothing that did not belong to them.
The outlet reported that the images were initially shown to the families by the IDF spokesperson after they were discovered among materials uncovered by troops during operations in Gaza.
The families of the five surveillance soldiers met with Netanyahu on Tuesday morning. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement before the meeting that they intended to “plead with him to sign the [hostage-ceasefire] deal before his trip to Congress.”
Netanyahu is set to head to the United States next week ahead of his Wednesday address at the Capitol.
In May, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum released harrowing footage showing the abduction of the five female soldiers from the Nahal Oz base on October 7, describing the video as a “damning testament to the nation’s failure to bring home the hostages.”
The video was taken by body cameras worn by Hamas terrorists that day as they attacked the base near the Gaza border.
US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators have been working to reach a deal between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of the hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners and a ceasefire in the ongoing war, which began on October 7 when Hamas led a devastating attack that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 abducted to Gaza.
Earlier on Monday, demonstrators demanding the government secure a deal to bring back the 116 hostages held since October 7 blocked the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv.
The protesters, many of them relatives of those held in Gaza, held a banner depicting the faces of the hostages with the statement, “He who abandoned them must return them.”
Blocking the busy thoroughfare at Hashalom Interchange on the southbound highway, the protesters chanted, “Stop the world, our children and parents are there.”
Residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the hardest hit during Hamas’s rampage on October 7, were enraged by comments made Sunday evening by one of Netanyahu’s top advisers condoning the prime minister’s failure to visit the devastated southern community as he didn’t have “free time.”
“We would have expected that both the prime minister and you [National Security Advisor Tzahi Hanegbi] would feel the moral obligation to find the ‘free time’ for a kibbutz on which one in four residents was either murdered or kidnapped,” the community said in a statement carried by Channel 12.
In a Sunday night interview with Channel 12, Hanegbi had loyally defended Netanyahu’s leadership of the country, both before and after October 7 and during the ensuing war in Gaza.
“In my opinion, Netanyahu will be remembered as a man who strengthened the State of Israel… bringing the country to the forefront in countless different fields. There are always issues, and it remains to be seen what his part was in the issue of October 7. The experts will decide,” Hanegbi said.
It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — including the remains of 42 who have been confirmed dead by the IDF — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.
One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
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.