By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Hamas aired video on Sunday exhibiting three Israeli hostages it’s holding in Gaza during which they urged their authorities to cease the offensive towards the Palestinian Islamist group and produce about their launch, as each side marked the one centesimal day of the warfare.
The undated 37-second video of Noa Argamani, 26, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, ended with the chyron: “Tomorrow we are going to inform you of their destiny.”
Hamas stated earlier on Sunday it had misplaced contact with some hostages as Israeli forces shelled Gaza, noting that they could have been killed within the course of. On the outset of the warfare, it additionally threatened to execute hostages in retaliation for Israeli navy strikes.
Israeli officers have usually declined to answer Hamas’ public messaging on the hostages, casting it as psychological warfare. Hagar Mizrahi, a forensic official with Israel’s Well being Ministry, informed native TV on Dec. 31 that autopsies of slain hostages who had been recovered discovered causes of loss of life inconsistent with Hamas’ account that they had died in air strikes.
However Israel has additionally made clear it’s conscious of the dangers to hostages from its offensive, and is taking precautions.
“The navy operation takes time. It obligates us to be exact, and we’re adapting it in accordance with the threats and the hostages who’re within the subject,” chief armed forces spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari stated on Sunday.
Of some 240 individuals seized by Hamas in an Oct. 7 cross-border killing spree that sparked the warfare, round half have been launched in a November truce. Israel says 132 stay in Gaza and that 25 of them have died in captivity.
The hostage disaster has riveted Israelis reeling from the worst assault of their historical past. Some hostages’ family members have known as on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enter one other truce and even name off the warfare. He has vowed to struggle on till Hamas is destroyed, which he argued would allow the hostages’ launch.
Final month, Netanyahu stated in parliament he had requested Beijing to assist free Argamani, whose mom Liora is Chinese language. Affected by a terminal sickness, Liora Argamani has appealed to be reunited together with her daughter earlier than she dies.
(Further reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Dan Williams; Enhancing by Richard Chang)
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