Hamas releases video of Israeli hostage Liri Albag as ceasefire talks resume

Hamas has released a video showing a 19-year-old Israeli hostage, as informal talks between the group and Israel on a ceasefire and hostage release resume in Qatar.

The video shows Liri Albag asking the Israeli government to reach an agreement.

She was kidnapped along with six other female soldiers recruited from the Nahal Oz military base on the Gaza border during a Hamas attack in October 2023. Five of them are still in custody.

The announcement of the renewed talks came as Israel stepped up its offensive in Gaza, where Palestinian rescuers said more than 30 people were killed in Saturday’s bombings.

One strike on a house in Gaza City on Saturday killed 11 people, including seven children, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defense.

Photos show residents searching the rubble for survivors and bodies wrapped in cloth.

“There was a big explosion that woke us up. Everything was shaking,” neighbor Ahmed Mussa told AFP.

“It was a home for children, women. There was no one wanted or threatening.”

Israel’s military said on Sunday it had struck more than 100 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip in the past two days and “eliminated a large number of Hamas terrorists”.

Responding to this video showing their daughter, Liri Albag’s parents said their hearts were torn into pieces and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make decisions as if there were children of your own”.

The headquarters of the Forum for Hostages and Missing Families, which represents the families of the abductees, said the sign of life from Liri was “a hard and undeniable proof of the urgency to bring all the abductees home”.

Signaling the parents of Lira Albag, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country’s delegation will stay at the negotiating table until all the abductees are returned home.

Israeli officials have described the release of such videos by Hamas as psychological warfare.

Last month a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that negotiations to reach a ceasefire agreement and a hostage release agreement were largely completedbut important matters still needed to be closed.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile captured in Yemen, the latest in a series of such attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

The Houthis said they fired a “hypersonic ballistic missile” at a power station near the Israeli city of Haifa. This group says that it started directing ships to the Red Sea and firing guns at Israel because of the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza.

The current war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed more than 45,700 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the area.

On Saturday the Gaza health ministry said all three public hospitals in northern Gaza were completely out of order and had been “destroyed” by Israeli forces.

Israeli forces have blockaded parts of northern Gaza since October, and the UN says the area is “almost completely besieged” as Israeli forces severely block aid access to the area where about 10,000 to 15,000 people remain. .

Late last month, Israeli forces forced patients and medical staff out of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, saying the facility was a “Hamas terrorist base” again. arrested the director of the hospital Hussam Abu Safiya.

It said it has facilitated the transfer of other medical staff and patients to a nearby Indonesian hospital. But the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday that hospital had been put out of action, along with the hospital in Beit Hanoun.

The head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also called for an end to attacks on hospitals and health workers. “The people of Gaza need to get medical help,” he said.

Israel says its forces operate in accordance with international law and do not target civilians.

On Saturday, the Biden administration said it was is planning an $8bn (£6.4bn) arms sale to Israel. Arms shipments, which require approval by the US House and Senate committees, include missiles, shells and other weapons.

The move comes less than two weeks before Biden leaves office and Donald Trump takes office as president.

Washington has repeatedly rejected calls to end military support to Israel because of the number of people killed in Gaza.