Hamas releases video showing hostage alive

Hamas’s armed wing released a video Saturday showing an Israeli hostage alive in Gaza speaking on a telephone in Hebrew.

Israeli media identified him as Elkana Bohbot, who was abducted from the site of a music festival in southern Israel during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war in Gaza.

The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades released the more than four-minute clip, in which he is seen sitting in a tiny room and purportedly talking to a friend and some family members.

It could not be confirmed whether such a call actually took place, and AFP was unable to verify when the video was filmed.

In the footage, Bohbot is seen speaking into a landline telephone, urging a friend to take his wife to the White House to meet US President Donald Trump in an effort to secure his release.

It is the third such video of Bohbot in recent weeks, with the previous clip released in late March.

In that video he had urged the Israeli government to secure his freedom.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, 58 remain in captivity in Gaza including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.