Islamic Jihad releases video of living Israeli hostage

The Palestinian Islamist organization Islamic Jihad released, on Monday January 8, a video of a living Israeli hostage, one of 132 still held in the Gaza Strip since the attack on October 7 on Israeli soil. In this video from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the Israeli, speaking in English and Hebrew, specifies that he is speaking on January 5. He asks the Israeli authorities to work for his release and to work on an exchange with Palestinian prisoners.

The family of the hostage, captured at Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, asked the media not to broadcast the video. Around 75 people were kidnapped in this kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. Unprecedented in its violence and scale, the October 7 attack perpetrated by Islamist Hamas commandos, in which its ally Islamic Jihad participated, left around 1,140 dead in Israel, according to an AFP count from of the latest official Israeli figures available.

Some 250 people were taken hostage by the two Palestinian Islamist movements, among whom 132 are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. According to Israel, several of them died and their bodies are still in the territory.