By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2025-01-04 23:50:08 | Updated at 2025-01-06 21:13:20
1 day ago
Hamas released a video Saturday indicating that 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag is possibly still alive — and showing her hanging her head in despair as she talks of “living in a nightmare.”
In the three-and-a-half-minute clip, Albag references the New Year and states she has been held captive for 450 days, showing it was filmed recently but there is no proof it was shot within the last few days.
“I’m only 19 years old. I have my entire life in front of me, but now my entire life has been put on pause,” Albag said through tears in the video, according to The Jerusalem Post.
“We’re starting a really dark year here. The world is starting to forget about us. No one cares about us. We’re living in a nightmare.”
The teenager then directly pleaded with the Israeli government to intervene before chilling stating: “I just want people to remember me, remember my name. All of this is because of the government and the army.”
The teenager’s family did not authorize the widespread release of the video, stating that the disturbing footage has “torn our heart to pieces.”
“This is not the daughter and sister we know. She is not well — her severe psychological distress is evident. We watched our heroic Liri surviving and pleading for her life,” Eli and Shira Albag said in a statement.
“She is just dozens of kilometers away from us, yet for 456 days we have been unable to bring her home. We appeal to the Prime Minister, world leaders, and all decision makers: It’s time to make decisions as if your own children were there! Liri is alive and must return alive! This depends only on you! You must not miss this current opportunity to bring them back. All of them.”
The video is the latest in a series of propaganda clips released by Hamas of Israeli captives taken in the October 7, 2023 attack.
Albag was serving as a surveillance soldier at the Nahal Oz military base close to the Gaza border when the invasion began. Fifteen surveillance soldiers were killed, and Albag was abducted to Gaza along with six others, the Times of Israel reported.
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, and recently appeared in another clip over the summer that showed the women bloodied and bruised.
In the footage, Albag appeared trying to speak English with Hamas gunmen as a heavily bloodied Levy stood beside her.
Another photograph showed four of the women, including Albag, sleeping on mats with a framed picture of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh positioned behind them. Gilboa and Ariev sported head bandages for the snapshot.
Being featured in the recent propaganda video does not secure Albag’s safety — the body of fellow hostage Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin was found in a Gaza tunnel in August, just months after Hamas released a clip of the 23-year-old promising his family he would “be home soon.”
“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 Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement, adding that the video of Albag was “harsh and undeniable proof of the urgent need to bring all of the hostages home.”
Officials estimate there are 62 hostages still being held by Hamas.
Israel has continued to rain missiles down on the Gaza Strip, including a series of overnight airstrikes that killed 56 people in 24 hours.
Efforts at ceasefire negotiations resumed in Qatar on Friday.
