Hamas releases video showing two Israeli hostages alive

Hamas released a video on Saturday showing two Israeli hostages alive in Gaza, speaking to the camera and describing how they had survived an alleged Israeli strike.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades released the more than two-minute clip, in which one of the two men appears with his right cheek and right hand bandaged.

AFP was unable to verify the authenticity of the footage or when it was filmed.

The video was released a day after Israeli forces launched a ground offensive in Gaza City in the Shujaiya area “in order to expand the security zone” inside the Palestinian territory.

Hamas said on Friday the offensive was putting hostages’ lives at risk.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas took 251 Israelis hostages.

Fifty-eight hostages remain in captivity, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.

During a recent ceasefire that ended on March 18 when Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza, Hamas released 33 hostages, eight of whom were dead.

A video circulating on social media appears to show the devastating effects of an Israeli bombing in Gaza, with reports indicating that people were thrown into the air due to the intensity of the blasts.

The force of the blasts threw people high into the sky above destroyed buildings amid intense Israeli bombing in Gaza.

The footage, shared by local journalists, shows bodies of humans hurled high above buildings amidst plumes of smoke and dust from multiple Israeli strikes.

“US rockets used by Israeli occupation to send both SOULS and BODIES of children to heaven!” one Gaza-based journalist wrote in a post accompanying the video.