Hamas releases video of hostage pleading to be freed as his brother is separated from him
Clip shows Eitan Horn expressing distress he’ll be left behind, hugging his brother Iair before the latter’s release from Gaza; PM’s office slams terror group’s ‘brutal propaganda’
Hamas published a propaganda video Saturday showing Iair Horn, 46, who was released from captivity two weeks ago, saying goodbye to his younger brother Eitan, 38, who is still being held in the Gaza Strip.
After approving the publication of the video, the family of the captive demanded the government continue the hostage-ceasefire deal, the first phase of which is scheduled to end at midnight Saturday. Hamas has rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the first phase, insisting that the deal proceed to stage two, which Israel has largely refused to negotiate for the past month.
The video begins with five hostages sitting on the floor — the Horn brothers, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and two more hostages whose faces Hamas blurred in the video — sitting in a room, preparing to eat. The father of hostage Nimrod Cohen later identified his son as one of the other hostages by the tattoo on his forearm.
“He got the tattoo a few days before he was kidnapped,” Yehuda Cohen told the Ynet news site. “I’m disappointed that we don’t see Nimrod’s face because I haven’t seen him in a year and a half, but these are Hamas’s games.”
The hostages embrace each other in the video ahead of the release of Iair and Dekel-Chen, which Eitan says in the video would be taking place the next day. Iair Horn, Dekel-Chen, and Sasha Troufanov were released on February 15 as part of the first phase of the deal.
The camera then pans to the face of a distraught Eitan, seemingly overwhelmed about being left behind.
“I am very happy that my brother will be released tomorrow, but it is not logical in any way that families are being separated,” Eitan says, his voice cracking.
“Get everyone out and stop [separating] families, and do not destroy our lives anymore,” he adds, before crying into the shoulder of his older brother Iair.
“Tell mom, dad and everyone to continue with the demonstrations [for a hostages deal], that they shouldn’t stop and that the government should sign already onto the second and third phases of the deal to return all of us home,” Eitan tells his brother Iair. “Do everything you can.”
“You are now forcing me to leave my little brother here to die,” Iair says into the camera, with his arm still around Eitan’s shoulder.
Eitan expresses his disbelief and disgust that Israel’s government is not interested in moving forward with the deal’s second phase. “Have you gone crazy?” he asks. “My brother is leaving, and I’m staying here.”
Eitan says that sometimes he receives food and sometimes he doesn’t; sometimes he’s okay and sometimes he’s not. “But here, I’m not okay,” he says, pointing to his head, apparently referring to the psychological effects of captivity.
Eitan then addresses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly and pleads with him to sign onto the second phase of the hostage deal.
In their statement, the Horn family said, “Our hearts break seeing Eitan in this difficult situation being separated from his brother to continue being held in Hamas’s hell for [what now is] 512 days.”
“You can see in Eitan’s eyes the despair and fear he is in. Since Iair returned to us, he has not stopped thinking and acting for Eitan and all hostages he met in captivity who remain in Gaza.
“We demand that the decision-makers look Eitan in the eye and continue the deal that has already returned dozens of hostages. They are running out of time! Bring everyone home — now — and in one fell swoop,” the family added.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office called the video “brutal propaganda.”
“The Hamas terrorist organization released another brutal propaganda video this evening, in which our hostages are forced to engage in psychological warfare,” the PMO said.
Promising not to be deterred, Netanyahu’s office pledged to “work tirelessly to return all of our hostages and meet all of Israel’s war goals.”
Nimrod Cohen’s father Yehuda rejected Netanyahu’s branding of the video as “psychological terror” and accused the premier of sacrificing the hostages in order to maintain his grip on power.
Iair Horn was abducted from his home in Nir Oz on October 7 as Hamas terrorists swarmed through the kibbutz, killing or kidnapping a quarter of the southern community’s residents. Israel says 251 people were kidnapped and some 1,200 killed during the massive Hamas-led onslaught across southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
His brother, Eitan, who was visiting from Kfar Saba for the holiday weekend, was also kidnapped and is still held in Gaza. He was not on the list of “humanitarian” cases — women, children, elderly individuals, and the infirm — slated for release in the first stage of the ceasefire.
The first, 42-day phase of the agreement formally expires Saturday. Thirty-three Israeli hostages have been released — eight of them dead, along with five Thai nations. Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have been freed.
Under the ceasefire outline, the remaining living hostages — believed to number 24 — are to be released during the second stage of the deal, during which the Israel Defense Forces would complete a full withdrawal from Gaza. A third stage is also planned, during which the bodies of hostages killed on October 7 or in captivity would be released, and the war would end permanently.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
