Israel broadcast footage in recent hours showing the moment female soldiers were captured at a military base on October 7, at the hands of fighters from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. After families of five Israeli female soldiers held hostage in Gaza permitted the broadcast of these scenes, all official Israeli government accounts began sharing the video on social media. However, some of those accounts published misleading allegations along with the video.
The government account "Israel" tweeted on the platform X last Wednesday evening that the fighters appearing in the video shouted, "Here are the girls who can get pregnant," possibly implying that they would be raped, a claim that Israeli officials have repeatedly made since October 7. In the footage, one of the armed individuals can be heard saying, "Here they are, the cowards."
The three-minute-long clip, taken from a two-hour video filmed by Hamas fighters according to the families, shows some of the female soldiers with blood-stained faces, sitting on the ground in sleepwear with their hands tied behind their backs. Some of them attempted to speak to the Hamas fighters in English, with clear signs of panic on their faces, before being transported amidst the shouts of Hamas members in a military jeep, under heavy gunfire.
In a separate statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on his Telegram account yesterday that "this footage will strengthen his resolve to proceed with all his efforts until Hamas is eradicated to ensure that what we witnessed tonight will never happen again." His office later stated that the war government asked the Israeli negotiation team to "continue negotiations for the return of the hostages," according to reports from AFP. They also clarified that "the video, which lasts three minutes and ten seconds, was censored to remove the most gruesome footage, such as the killing of many young men and women at the Nahal Oz base, as well as many scenes that include significant brutality."
On the other hand, Hamas condemned the "manipulation" of the video in a statement released last night, asserting that there was "deliberate editing and selection of images and clips to support the occupation's claims and lies about the assault on the female soldiers." They added that "the presence of minor bloodstains or slight injuries on some of the soldiers is expected in such operations, and the footage did not show any physical assault on any of them."
