From Hamas propaganda image labels 48 remaining hostages as missing navigator Ron Arad
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Hamas publishes a propaganda image of the remaining 48 hostages held in the Gaza Strip, naming them all Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator who has been classified as missing since 1988.
The image’s text reads: “Because of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s refusal, and [IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal] Zamir’s capitulation, a parting image as the military operation in Gaza City begins.”
The text appears to accuse Netanyahu of refusing to reach a ceasefire-hostage release deal, while charging that Zamir is carrying out the order to conquer Gaza City despite his reported opposition to the plan.
Hostage families have expressed fear that their loved ones would share the fate of Arad without a deal for their release.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Among the bodies held by Hamas is an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March 2024, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May 2024 as a “gesture” to the United States. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 51 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The Times of Israel Community.