Hamas uses Israeli hostage Noa Argamani in propaganda videos to claim 2 other captives killed by IDF strikes
Hamas released a series of propaganda videos on Sunday and Monday showing three Israeli hostages — Noa Argamani, Yossi Sharabi and Itai Savirsky — who were abducted during the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. After saying the fate of all three hostages would be announced later, Hamas released a video Monday showing Argamani saying that her fellow captives, 53-year-old Yossi Sharabi and 38-year-old Itai Svirsky, had been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, before showing what appeared to be the men's bodies.
Hostage videos are often filmed under duress and feature forced statements, and CBS News cannot independently verify the videos, the information conveyed by the hostages speaking in the Hamas clips, or when the videos were filmed. Hamas has previously issued false claims about hostages being killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza.
In the first video posted online Sunday, the three hostages are seen sitting separately against a bare wall and speaking to the camera, asking for an end to the war. The second video, posted Monday, showed photos of the same hostages overlaid by graphics asking the audience to guess whether each person was alive, wounded or dead. The final video released Monday showed Argamani saying to the camera that Sharabi and Savirsky were killed in IDF airstrikes.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari Monday in response to the videos that "Itai was not shot by our forces — this is a Hamas lie. The building where they were being held was not a target, and it was not struck by our forces."
Hagari also said that the IDF "did not know their real-time location; we do not strike in places where we know there may be hostages. In hindsight, we know we struck targets near to the location where they were being held. We are investigating the event and its circumstances, examining the images distributed by Hamas, alongside additional information at our disposal."
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum told CBS News on Tuesday that the videos were "further proof that the hostages are in immediate mortal danger... The lives of all the hostages are at the mercy of the murderous terrorists."
The families group said it was calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet "to promote an immediate deal that will bring about the release of all the hostages, including the bodies of those murdered, and return them back to Israel."
Argamani, 26, was at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7 when she was abducted by Hamas militants on the back of a motorcycle. Video showed her being driven away with her arms outstretched, yelling for help.
Noa's mother Liora Argamani has brain cancer and has publicly pleaded for her daughter's release, saying she doesn't know how much time she has left to see her.
Sharabi and Svirsky were both kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Bari in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Sharabi lived at the kibbutz and Svirsky was there visiting his mother.
Sunday marked 100 days since the Hamas attack, which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. Israeli officials say more than 240 people were taken hostage from Israel and about 1,200 killed in that attack. Around half of the hostages were released during a negotiated pause in hostilities with Hamas in November.
Israeli officials say 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza and 25 have died in captivity, according to the Reuters news agency.
Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health says more than 24,000 people have been killed in the densely populated Palestinian enclave since the war began. Hamas officials do not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Most of the population of Gaza has been displaced amid Israeli air and ground operations to destroy Hamas, which is classified as a terror organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union.
"The military operation takes time. It obligates us to be precise, and we are adapting it in accordance with the threats and the hostages who are in the field," the IDF's Hagari said Sunday.
As the war reached its 100th day on Sunday, Gil Dickmann, whose 39-year-old cousin Carmel Gat is still among the unaccounted for hostages in Gaza, said he and other family members of the captives, "feel desperate."
"The whole point, as they told us, of the second stage of the war, of moving in through the ground, was in order to get the hostages back… and the hostages aren't here," Dickmann told CBS News.
"They forgot about us," he said. "I'm really trying to get answers, and I don't really receive them because they're just telling me to wait."