The Hamas group has released a video on the Telegram channel showcasing armed men taking care of babies who are being held captive. The group, based in the Gaza Strip, recently launched a terror attack on Israel and took around 150 hostages from various nationalities. The video is meant to portray that the babies are being treated well by the group.
The video shows an infant in a pram, as well as other children between the ages of four and six. In one scene, a man dressed in camouflage and carrying an AK series assault rifle holds a baby, with the gun serving as support for the baby’s back. Another scene shows a group of men pushing a pram in an attempt to soothe a crying infant.
Towards the end of the video, a Hamas operative asks a child to say “Bismillah” while offering a cup of water. The child complies and takes the cup. This same child is seen at the beginning of the video crying while a Hamas operative wraps a bandage around his injured ankle.
Israel and the United States have pledged to do everything in their power to rescue the hostages who are believed to be held in various Hamas hideouts across the densely populated Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge in southern Gaza after being warned by Israel to evacuate ahead of an anticipated ground offensive against Hamas.
Hamas is responsible for the deaths of over 1,300 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians. This attack has been compared to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Additionally, nearly 1,800 Gazans, most of them civilians, including over 580 children, have been killed in multiple waves of missile strikes in the densely populated enclave.
Hamas claims that 13 of the 150 hostages have been killed in Israeli air strikes, while four hostages died in previous bombardments. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who is currently visiting Israel, has accused Hamas of using residents as human shields.
Israeli ground forces have conducted localized raids into Gaza to eliminate terrorists and weapons and search for missing individuals, according to the army. A Reuters video journalist was killed in southern Lebanon, and several other journalists, including two from Al-Jazeera, were injured.
This article contains inputs from Agence France-Presse (AFP).