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Hamas wages psychological warfare by posting final messages from murdered hostages

The footage indicates there will be additional videos released later.

By World Israel News Staff

Continuing its commonly-used tactic of psychological warfare, Hamas released videos of  6 hostages before murdering them.

In the videos released Monday, the hostages, looking gaunt, tired, and mistreated, introduce themselves.

The footage indicates there will be additional videos later.

The hostages featured are the six whose bodies were found by the IDF on Saturday: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi.

Hamas has repeatedly released videos with hostages making statements they were forced to say by their captors.

It isn’t clear when the video was taken, but the hostages were shot at close range two to three days before the IDF recovered their bodies.

On Sunday, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the six captives appeared to have been executed by their captors “a short time” before Israeli soldiers located them.

Later on Sunday, Yedioth Aharanoth reported that the remains of the six hostages were returned to Israel at approximately 4:00 a.m. Sunday, and were immediately brought for forensic testing and identification.

The examinations revealed, according to the report, that the six hostages had been shot in the head sometime within the prior 48 hours.

Read  Does Hamas know where the hostages are?

The IDF estimates that the six hostages were initially held in the northern Gaza Strip and were only brought to Rafah later in the war.

The remains of the six captives were found without the benefit of intelligence information when a unit of IDF soldiers were traversing a tunnel under Rafah.

The tunnel in question is located roughly one kilometer (3,280 feet) from where Farhan al-Qadi, and Israeli Bedouin man held hostage in Gaza since October 7th, was rescued by Israeli forces last week.

In addition to establishing the time of death and the cause of death, the forensic examinations showed that the hostages had suffered from neglect, that they had not bathed for a lengthy period of time, and that they had sustained serious injuries, which were later treated.