Before Their Deaths, Hostages Seen Celebrating Hanukkah

New footage of six Israeli hostages shows them celebrating the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah while being held captive in a tunnel in Gaza, several months before they were killed. Israel said all six were killed last August by Hamas, shortly before Israeli troops arrived. The videos and photos were published Thursday for the first time by the forum representing hostage families, reports the AP. They show Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23; Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; Alexander Lobanov, 33; and Carmel Gat, 40, filmed under duress, walking through a tunnel in Gaza, playing cards on the floor and lighting the holiday candles.

The forum said the footage was found in Gaza and documented the hostages' months in captivity. At least some was likely filmed during Hanukkah in December 2023, weeks after they'd been abducted during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. The Israeli army said their bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and there was no doubt Hamas killed them. The Israeli Health Ministry said that autopsies had determined the hostages were shot at close range. At the time of their deaths, a senior Hamas official said the hostages would still be alive if Israel had accepted a US-backed proposal that Hamas said it had recently agreed to.

Some of the hostages—Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi, and Gat—had been slated to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed a month prior. "It's truly heartbreaking … They managed to protect their humanity and each other, and we failed to protect them," Gili Roman, who has family ties to Gat, told the AP. Netanyahu praised himself for bringing home all of the hostages but he brought them home in body bags, he said.

The videos are a reminder of the failure by Israel and Hamas to reach a deal when both knew the hostages were still alive, said Gil Dickmann, a cousin of Gat. Now the body of the last remaining hostage, police officer Ran Gvili, must be returned, Dickmann said. "We will demand from our government, we will demand from Hamas to not to do anything else, not to proceed to the second stage (of the current ceasefire deal) until Rani is back and all the hostages are back," he said.