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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Hamas releases video of hostages in Gaza City as Israeli military | |
advances | |
By Tamar Michaelis, Ibrahim Dahman and Oren Liebermann | |
Updated: | |
1:55 PM EDT, Sat September 6, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
Hamas on Friday released a video of two hostages being driven around , | |
in a move apparently aimed at swaying Israeli public opinion as the | |
military ramps up its assault on the city. | |
The propaganda video shows captive Guy Gilboa-Dalal in a car in several | |
locations in Gaza City, including outside the Red Crescent | |
headquarters. Apparently filmed last week, it reveals damaged buildings | |
through the car window as the unseen driver leads the car through parts | |
of the city. CNN has geolocated the video to Gaza City. | |
Toward the end of the video a second hostage, Alon Ohel, 24, appears | |
alongside Gilboa-Dalal in the car. The two embrace and appear surprised | |
to see each other. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you,” | |
Gilboa-Dalal says several times in the video. | |
It was a rare Hamas hostage video in which captives were filmed above | |
ground. Gilboa-Dalal, who was likely filmed under duress, says in the | |
clip that the date of filming is August 28 and that he has been a | |
hostage for 22 months. | |
The release of the video came on the 700th day of the war, which was | |
marked by protests across Israel calling for a ceasefire deal that | |
would see the hostages released. | |
It also comes as the Israeli government insists on pressing ahead with | |
its assault on Gaza City despite objections from hostage families, much | |
of the international community . The offensive is expected to displace | |
nearly a million Palestinians and has already exacted a heavy | |
humanitarian toll. Health authorities said at least seven children were | |
killed in strikes on Gaza City overnight Thursday. | |
Last month, Hamas presented by mediators Qatar and Egypt that it says | |
is almost identical to an offer made by the United States. But Israel | |
has dismissed it, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he’ll | |
accept nothing short of a comprehensive agreement that sees all | |
hostages released and Hamas disarmed. | |
In conversations with the hostages’ families, Netanyahu said no video | |
“will weaken us or divert us” from achieving what he has set as | |
Israel’s maximalist war goals. | |
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum responded to the prime minister | |
by saying that, “Anyone who truly wants to bring back all 48 hostages | |
– whether for rehabilitation or proper burial – must immediately | |
send the negotiating team to the negotiating table.” | |
In the nearly four-minute video, Gilboa-Dalal addresses the planned | |
Israeli takeover and as he pleads for the Israeli government to bring | |
him home. | |
“I heard that you’re going to carry an assault on Gaza City, and | |
this idea is giving me nightmares. What does it mean?” Gilboa-Dalal | |
asks. “It means we’ll die here.” | |
He says there are eight other hostages also held in Gaza City, who | |
“are going to die here” if the offensive moves forward. CNN can’t | |
confirm the claim that eight hostages are in Gaza City. | |
Gilboa-Dalal also calls on Israelis to demonstrate against the | |
government and to demand an end to the war that would bring home the | |
remaining 48 hostages, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive. | |
“We just want this to end. We want to go back to our families. | |
We’re found adjacent to the military. We’re scared, there are | |
explosions here, gunfire. Please return us,” he says. | |
Gilboa-Dalal was last seen in a Hamas propaganda video released in | |
February, in which he is forced to watch other hostages being freed | |
during an agreed exchange between Hamas and Israel. | |
On Friday morning, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum criticized | |
the . In a statement, the hostage families said they were briefed by | |
the Israeli military that the offensive would increase the risk to | |
hostages since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) lacks precise | |
information about their location. | |
“There is a deal on the table – this is what will bring back the | |
last hostage, this is what will end the war,” the forum said in a | |
statement. | |
Military closes in on Gaza City | |
On Thursday, the IDF said it already controls 40% of Gaza City – | |
along with more than 70% of the entire besieged territory. The | |
operation will “expand and intensify” in the coming days, according | |
to spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin. | |
Residents in Gaza City told CNN of horrifying nights as Israel bombed | |
the city from above and ground forces pushed into the outskirts of the | |
city. | |
More than a dozen people, including at least seven children, were | |
killed in strikes on Gaza City overnight Thursday, a spokesperson for | |
Al-Shifa Hospital said. Videos posted to social media showed doctors | |
and aid workers treating bloodied and burned children and small bodies | |
on stretchers being rushed to hospital. | |
A firefighter from the Gaza Civil Defense said he saw a mother crawling | |
on the floor, searching for her children as her hands burned. He was | |
able to save the mother and her son and daughter, who were charred from | |
the flames, and brought them all to Al-Shifa Hospital. | |
“I have not and will not be able to overcome this situation for the | |
rest of my life, and the screams of the mother and her children will | |
continue to echo in my mind,” the firefighter said. | |
CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment. | |
On Wednesday, a UNICEF spokeswoman said Gaza’s children are | |
“fighting for survival” in Gaza City, which has become a city of | |
“fear, flight and funerals.” | |
“The last refuge for families in the northern Gaza Strip is fast | |
becoming a place where childhood cannot survive,” Tess Ingram said in | |
New York after a nine-day visit to the city. | |
Meanwhile, a top European Union official slammed Europe’s inability | |
to stop a “genocide” in Gaza, the first time a senior EU politician | |
has described the conflict as such. | |
“The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to speak and act | |
with one voice, even as protests spread across European cities,” | |
Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, the | |
executive arm of the bloc, said on Thursday in Paris. | |
Responding to her comments, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign | |
ministry accused Ribera of “baseless allegations.” Oren Marmorstein | |
posted on X Thursday that Ribera had made herself a “mouthpiece for | |
Hamas propaganda.” | |
‘Death in my own home is better than displacement’ | |
With Israeli forces closing in, fear has become a constant reality for | |
many of the Palestinians within the enclave’s largest city. | |
“Last night, the Israeli army bombed four houses on the same street | |
as ours,” said Sabhi al-Rantisi, who lives in the Sheikh Radwan | |
neighborhood. “It was a very difficult night.” | |
Al-Rantisi says his wife and two children fled to central Gaza, but he | |
refuses to be forced out, at least for now. | |
Only 70,000 Palestinians have so far evacuated Gaza City out of | |
approximately one million people, a senior Israeli official said | |
Wednesday, making up less than 10% of the total population. The | |
overwhelming majority have not moved. | |
“We haven’t asked formally people to move,” said the official | |
from Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories | |
(COGAT) in a briefing. “The large-scale operation hasn’t begun | |
yet.” | |
Abu Yasser Al-Khour, a 51-year-old father of six, said he will not flee | |
again. | |
“I am staying in my home and will not be displaced again, until my | |
last breath, even if it means death, because we are exhausted from | |
displacement,” he told CNN. | |
A shortage of water, medicine, and cash has gripped Gaza City, he said. | |
His work as a driver disappeared long ago, but like most of city’s | |
population, he refuses to leave. | |
“Life in displacement is unbearable, fetching water, collecting wood | |
for cooking,” he said. “In summer we die from heat, in winter we | |
die from cold. In every case, death in my own home is better than | |
displacement.” | |
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correctly identify Alon | |
Ohel’s age. | |
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