Hamas releases video with sign of life from 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag

The Hamas terror group released a propaganda video on Saturday showing signs of life from 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag, the latest in a series of clips it has released of Israeli captives taken in the October 7, 2023 attack.

The three-and-a-half-minute-long video was not dated, although Albag stated in it that she has been held for over 450 days, indicating that it was filmed recently.

Albag, a surveillance soldier, was stationed at the Nahal Oz military base close to the Gaza border when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists poured into Israel from the Palestinian enclave. Fifteen surveillance soldiers were killed in the onslaught, and Albag was abducted to Gaza along with six others.

One of the abducted surveillance soldiers was later rescued alive, and the body of a second one was recovered after she was murdered in captivity. The other five — Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Naama Levy and Daniella Gilboa — are still hostages.

Israel has condemned previous such videos of hostages as psychological warfare by Hamas.

Most Israeli media do not carry video clips published by the terror group unless the family expressly requests so. Albag’s family asked that the media not publish the video, although it permitted outlets to carry still images from the footage.

“The video released today tore our hearts apart,” her family said in a short statement on Saturday evening. “This is not the same daughter and sister that we know. She is in bad condition, and her difficult mental state is evident.”

“We saw our heroic Liri survive and beg for her life. She is several dozen kilometers from us, and for 456 days we have been unable to bring her home,” the family said.

They appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government to make decisions regarding the hostages “as if your children were there.”

“Liri is alive and must come back alive! It depends only on you,” the family said.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement of its own that the video of Albag was “harsh and undeniable proof of the urgent need to bring all of the hostages home.”

“Every day in Hamas’s hell in Gaza poses an immediate risk of death to the living hostages and endangers the ability to recover the fallen for proper burial,” the statement said.

The Forum noted that in 16 days, on January 20, US President-elect Donald Trump will return to the White House. Trump has said on multiple occasions that there will be “all hell to pay” should the hostages not be released by the time his inauguration rolls around.

“We must not lose this historic window of opportunity,” the Forum said, calling for people to join the families of the hostages at rallies across the country on Saturday night as they protest in favor of a hostage release and ceasefire deal.

The release of Hamas’s latest propaganda clip coincided with ongoing hostage negotiations in Doha, where Qatari mediators met with a mid-level Israeli negotiating team and Hamas representatives for parallel discussions aimed at overcoming ongoing differences between the warring parties.

Talks had stalled for roughly a week and a half after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called back Israel’s negotiating team from Qatar for internal deliberations on December 25. Since then, optimism about the potential for a deal before Trump’s inauguration waned.

After the talks wrapped up on Friday, a senior Israeli official told Axios that Israel and Hamas remain at an impasse over almost all issues and that the negotiations were advancing very slowly as a result. Nevertheless, the official said it would become clear within a week whether or not a deal could be reached.

It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.