'Don't let us grow old here': Hamas publishes video of 3 captives

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
18 Dec 2023 23:50
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The video features three Israeli captives who claimed to have been involved in "building the Israeli army."

A screen grab shows three Israeli captives (L-R) Amiram Cooper, Chaim Peri, and Yoram Metzger, who are held by the Palestinian Resistance in the Gaza Strip, on December 18, 2023.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, released on Monday a recorded message from Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip urging their families and the Israeli government not to abandon them.

Under the title "Don't Let Us Grow Old Here", the video featured three Israeli captives who claimed to have been involved in "building the Israeli army" and demanded their release.

One of the Israeli captives, Chaim Peri, 79, identified himself as being from Kibbutz "Nir Oz" and stated, "We are the generation that built Israel, and we participated in building the army. I don't understand why we are abandoned here."

He continued, "We don't want to die as a result of Israeli airstrikes," and demanded their unconditional release, ending his message with, "Don't let us grow old here." The other two captives echoed the same plea in the video.

كتائب القسام تنشر رسالة من الأسرى لديها إلى عوائلهم والحكومة الإسرائيلية: "لا تتركونا نشيخ"

Don't Let Us Grow Old Here
אל תשליכינו לעת זיקנה#الميادين #طوفان_الأقصى #كتائب_القسام pic.twitter.com/Wnp098Pnse
— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) December 18, 2023

On Saturday, Hamas official Osama Hamdan affirmed that the Resistance is capable of enduring [Israeli offensives] for months, highlighting that the Israeli occupation has three options: the Shalit option, the Israeli soldiers killed with friendly fire, or the Ron Arad option.

It is noteworthy that Gilad Shalit was an Israeli soldier captured by the Al-Qassam Brigades in 2006. "Israel" failed to locate him for years despite multiple aggressions on Gaza until Hamas succeeded in exchanging him for over a thousand prisoners in 2011.

As for Ron Arad, he was an Israeli pilot whose whereabouts remained unknown after his plane was downed in Lebanon in 1986. The Israeli occupation entity also failed to obtain information about his fate.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that the families of Israeli captives held by the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza are escalating their protests and demanding a government initiative to secure their release.

The newspaper cited a sibling of one of the captives as saying that the families will protest outside the Security Ministry throughout the week and wait for the ministers.

"I know they will try to avoid us through various means so they don't have to look into our eyes because they feel responsible and guilty."

Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the captives' relatives set up tents on Saturday at the main entrance to the Ministry and announced that they would focus all their protest activities there until the cabinet presents a plan for bringing back the captives held by the Resistance in Gaza.

On Saturday, the protesters sent a message to the Israeli occupation government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding action on a new prisoner exchange deal with the Resistance.

In their statement, they said, "With every critical minute, the lives of our prisoners are in real danger, and we only receive them one after the other as corpses... We only receive dead bodies, not responses, only dead prisoners."