Families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip released a video Thursday calling for a deal to free their loved homes, including footage of two hostages not previously published by Israeli media.
The families of hostages Maxim Herkin and Bar Kuperstein allowed a brief snippet from a Hamas propaganda clip released by the terror group in April to be included in the video plea, which also included previously published clips from Hamas propaganda videos featuring other captives.
Israeli media outlets have generally refrained from publishing videos of hostages unless okayed by their families, though the same content is openly circulated on social media.
The 44-second video published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the largest group representing hostage families, spliced together excerpts from multiple Hamas propaganda videos showing captives begging for their release.
The video called for a comprehensive ceasefire deal rather than another round of staggered, partial hostage releases, which are said to be at the core of a current proposal being pushed by the US that is reportedly gaining traction.
The video begins with a video of US President Donald Trump saying that the US “wants to get the hostages back,” before it cuts to clips of the hostages.
In the footage, Herkin and Kuperstein sit together with their backs against the wall.
Herkin, whose hand is bandaged, says that the two are “dead men walking.”
“We don’t feel like human beings,” he says.
In a second, shorter clip, Kuperstein only says: “Please!” in what appears to be an appeal for his release.
The forum said the families only permitted publication of the footage seen in the video, indicating there was more film of the two hostages.
The clip of the two released in April was the first sign of life for either hostage since their abduction on October 7, 2023, from the Nova festival near Kibbutz Re’im. At the time, the families asked Israeli media not to publish the footage or detail its contents.
The other videos in the compilation had previously been published by the families of the hostages, either in part or in full.
“The video is intended to amplify the cry of the hostages’ families and the hostages, in the face of the possibility of a partial deal, of ‘cruel selections,'” said the Hostages Forum in a statement accompanying the video, a reference to the Nazi “selections” during the Holocaust when death camp guards would choose those sent to slave labor and those who would be immediately murdered.
“The families demand a comprehensive agreement that will ensure the return of every last hostage,” the forum said. “This is the correct and moral thing to do, one which doesn’t require separating the kindred and the immoral choice of one hostage over another.”
The forum said it would hold a demonstration Friday outside the branch of the US embassy in Tel Aviv to proclaim that “we are at a historic window of opportunity. The person who brought a ceasefire with Iran can bring a ceasefire in Gaza,” a reference to Trump.
In early May, Hamas published a second propaganda video of Herkin.
Hamas has previously issued similar videos of other hostages it is holding, with Israel lambasting such videos as psychological warfare.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. The Hamas attack also killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Herkin, 35 and a father of one, was kidnapped from the Supernova desert rave on October 7, where Hamas terrorists assaulted the party, killing more than 360 and taking at least 40 hostage.
Kuperstein, 22, was part of the staff at the Supernova event and was also taken hostage.
Remaining hostages include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May as a “gesture” to the United States.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 49 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.