The families of five female Israeli hostages published images taken during their first days in captivity in Gaza after October 7 in an effort to draw attention to their plight.
The images of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa and Naama Levy were taken by Hamas terrorists shortly after the hostages were taken to Gaza. The images were recovered by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) among materials seized from Hamas facilities in Gaza.
- Naama Levy
- Daniella Gilboa
- Agam Berger
- Liri Albag
- Karina Ariev
Naama Levy, whose eye is bruised and blackened in the recovered image of her, was the Israeli woman seen on an infamous video being dragged from the rear of a jeep, with bloodied sweatpants, as Palestinian men cheer and shout “Allahu Akbar!“. She had been a pro-peace activist, and pleaded with her captors: “I have friends in Palestine.”
The female hostages are among the 120 hostages still remaining in Gaza, roughly half of whom are believed to be alive (though there is hope that more may still be alive). The Israeli government is still negotiating indirectly with Hamas through intermediaries in Egypt and Qatar for a deal that would see a temporary ceasefire and a release of convicted Palestinian terrorists in exchange for at least some of the hostages — especially the female hostages, in the first stage.
In May, the families of the female hostages, all soldiers in the IDF, released a three-minute video of their abduction from their military base in southern Israel, which was briefly breached and occupied by the terrorists on October 7. The terrorists murdered many of the other female soldiers in cold blood, and the video shows one of the terrorists referring to the captured women with an apparent intention of forcing them into sexual relations or marriage.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
