Hamas claimed this Thursday to have freed a hostage and her two children, kidnapped during clashes between this Palestinian Islamist movement and the Israeli army, while the Israeli media denied this information.
“An Israeli settler and her two children were released after being detained during clashes” between the movement and the Israeli army, the armed wing of Hamas revealed in a statement.
The Israeli army did not confirm this information, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
A video, immediately broadcast by the Palestinian Al-Aqsa television channel, showed a woman in a blue shirt, two children and three armed Hamas fighters walking away from an area lined with barbed wire. No military presence is seen in the images.
Israeli public television later claimed that these images showed people who had “never been taken to Gaza.”
The local press explains that this is Avital Aladjem, a resident of Kibbutz Holit who, according to a series of interviews, was forcibly taken on Saturday by Hamas men along with two children of a neighbor to the border area between Israel. and the Gaza Strip, after the unprecedented attack launched by hundreds of fighters from the Islamic movement in the south of the country.
Aladjem said her captors left her free to leave with the children near the border.
Dozens of Israelis and foreigners, soldiers, civilians, children and women, are believed to be in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the offensive.
Israeli authorities identify 150 hostages, while hundreds of people remain missing and bodies continue to be identified.
Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7, under the name of operation “Al-Aqsa Storm”, with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of rebels. armed by land. sea and air.
In response, Israel bombed several Hamas facilities in that Palestinian territory from the air, in an operation it called “Iron Swords.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country is “at war” with Hamas, which, he recalled, was internationally classified as a terrorist movement not only by Israel but also by the United States and the European Union (EU), among others. state.
Israel, which has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip and has cut off the supply of water, fuel and electricity, has so far confirmed more than 1,200 deaths and 3,700 injuries since the start of the Hamas offensive, supported by Hezbollah. Lebanese and the Palestinian branch of Islamic Jihad.
On the Palestinian side, the local Ministry of Health confirmed this Thursday that, in Gaza, Israeli retaliation attacks caused at least 1,100 deaths and 5,339 injuries.
Source: TSF
