A video of Israeli hostage Alexander Sasha Trupanov was released on Tuesday by the Al-Quds Brigades, the “military” wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization.
The 30-second video was posted to several PIJ channels on the secure messaging platform Telegram. Trupanov wore a polo shirt, displayed no visible signs of injury, and looked to have been given a haircut. It was not clear when the brief video was recorded.
Speaking in Hebrew, Trupanov addressed the people of Israel and “all of the protesters.”
“In the next few days, you will hear the truth of what happened to me, as well as the other prisoners in Gaza. Wait patiently,” he said.
The video concluded with images of rockets being launched and a brief glimpse of two men who were not identified.
Trupanov, 28, is a computer engineer with dual Russian-Israeli citizenship. He is employed by Annapurna Labs, a subsidiary of Amazon based in Tel Aviv. He was one of about 250 victims kidnapped by Hamas during the horrific wave of rapes, murders, and infanticide it perpetrated against Israeli civilians on October 7. The Israeli government believes about 130 hostages are still held by Palestinian terrorist organizations, and about a quarter of them have died in captivity.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Horror of the Hamas Terror Attack on Civilians at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel
Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News“Amazon employees in Israel have hung signs, made t-shirts and held events in solidarity with Troufanov [sic], but they are reportedly frustrated over management declining to issue any public statement about his abduction,” the New York Post reported on Tuesday.
Trupanov was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 — along with his mother Yelena, grandmother Irena, and girlfriend Sapir Cohen. His father, Vitaly Trupanov, an immigrant from Russia, was killed during the Hamas attack. The three women were among the 105 hostages freed by Palestinian terrorist organizations as part of a deal with Israel in November.
“Seeing my Sasha on television today is very heartening, but it also breaks my heart that he has been in captivity for such a long time,” Yelena Trupanov said after the hostage video was published.
Cohen gave an interview to the Italian newspaper Libero Quotidiano on May 22 in which she recalled seeing Trupanov “beaten bloody and thrown face-first into the ground” by the savage Hamas killers on October 7.
She said of her experiences on the day of the attack:
We were hoping for the military to intervene in our defense. Instead, terror broke out, accompanied by the screams of “Allahu Akbar!” We heard the shots and the cries of desperation of those who were forced to witness that massacre, of those who saw their loved ones massacred by bullets.
Cohen said that during her time as a hostage, Hamas operatives tried to convince her that Israel had “forgotten” about her and did not care about the fate of the other hostages.
“The proof of life from Alexander Trupanov is additional evidence that the Israeli government must give a significant mandate to the negotiating team, which will be able to lead to a deal for the return of all the hostages,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group of relatives of the October 7 victims, “the living to rehabilitation, and the murdered to burial.”
