Graphic New Hamas Video Shows Abduction of Three Hostages Into Gaza

Debbie Weiss

Disturbing footage of Hamas terrorists abducting three Israeli hostages from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, including Eliya Cohen (pictured). Photo: Screenshot

Disturbing footage of Hamas terrorists abducting three Israeli hostages from the Nova music festival, including dual US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was released for the first time on Monday evening.

The two-minute bodycam footage shows Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Or Levy, and Eliya Cohen bloodied but alive in the back of a pickup truck while being taken to Gaza, the Hamas-ruled enclave from which the Palestinian terrorist group launched its Oct. 7 invasion of and brutal rampage across southern Israel.

The families of the three made the decision to release the footage to highlight the “neglect” of the Israeli government in failing to secure their return 262 days after their abduction.

“Hersh, Eliya, and Or were kidnapped alive and so they have to return, today. Every day that passes endangers the abductees and may torpedo the ability to bring them home,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

WARNING: Viewer discretion advised. Some readers may find the following footage, which includes graphic content, disturbing and upsetting.

Goldberg-Polin, Cohen, and Levy were all in the same roadside bomb shelter when Hamas terrorists lobbed grenades inside.

Goldberg-Polin, who sought shelter with his friend Aner Shapira, had his arm blown off below the elbow. The video shows the 23-year-old American-Israeli clutching his arm with bone protruding out of it bound by a makeshift tourniquet.

Shapira caught seven of the grenades thrown inside the bomb shelter and managed to throw them back outside at the terrorists. The eighth grenade killed him.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the new footage, saying it “breaks all of our hearts, and once again underlines the cruelty of the enemy that we have vowed to eliminate.”

“We will not stop the war until we bring all of our 120 loved ones home,” Netanyahu said, referring to the hostages still in Gaza. Over 250 people were initially kidnapped during the Oct. 7 massacre in which 1,200 people were killed. More than 100 hostages were released as part of a temporary truce in November, and Israeli forces have rescued others, both living and deceased, as part of their ongoing operations in Gaza.

Or Levy, 33, and his wife Einav attended the music festival, arriving in the early morning shortly before terrorists overran the area. The couple took refuge in the same shelter as Goldberg-Polin and Shapira. Einav was killed and Or was taken hostage. They left an only child, Almog, who will turn three years old on Tuesday.

Eliya Cohen arrived at the festival with his girlfriend Ziv Abud, her nephew, and the nephew’s girlfriend. When the attack began, the four sought refuge in the shelter. Abud’s nephew and his girlfriend were murdered. Cohen was kidnapped from the shelter, while Ziv survived by being buried under the bodies for six hours.

On April 24, Hamas released a propaganda video showing Goldberg-Polin for the first time since his capture. The footage revealed he was missing his right lower arm.

In the undated three-minute video, Goldberg-Polin mentioned being held captive for “nearly 200 days,” suggesting a recent filming date. His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, cited Israeli video experts as concluding that the footage was very recent.

Hamas murdered more than 360 people at the Nova festival and kidnapped a further 40. They also maimed and sexually assaulted both men and women at the scene.

Also on Monday evening, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed that hostage Sergeant Major Mohammed Alatrash, a tracker in the Gaza Division, was killed while battling Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, new findings have shown. Alatrash’s body was taken into Gaza. He was survived by two wives and thirteen children, the youngest of whom was born a month before his murder.

Protesters block PA workers’ entry to Efrat

JOSH HASTEN

“Following Oct. 7…we refuse to accept the notion that in order to build or run our town we need to hire people who support terrorism against us, or could themselves be a terror threat.”

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A protest organized by B’yadaim Shelanu to prevent the entry of P.A. workers to Efrat in Gush Etzion, June 23, 2024. Credit: B’yadaim Shelanu.

Some 120 protesters gathered in the Gush Etzion town of Efrat on Sunday morning to prevent local building contractors from bringing Palestinian laborers into the community.

The protest, the third of its kind over the past several weeks, was organized by “B’yadaim Shelanu” (In Our Hands), an initiative launched by a dedicated group of Efrat women in December 2023. The group opposes the reinstatement of Arab workers from the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. 

According to Israeli intelligence, Arab workers from Gaza who had been allowed into southern Israeli kibbutzim aided Hamas’s attack, mapping out homes and passing detailed information to the terrorist group.

Before the war, 193,000 P.A. workers were employed throughout Israel, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria. Today only around 8,000 P.A. workers are employed by Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria, mainly in local industrial zones or construction sites.  

According to an Israeli security official, while communities can request that P.A. workers be brought in, residents cannot keep them out.

“If a community wants to bring in P.A. workers, they can approach their local security chief and ask him to put in a special request with the IDF regional commander who makes the decisions,” the official, who asked not to be identified, explained to JNS. However, he continued, the only way to stop them being brought in is to “block the entrance.”

In addition to the protests, B’yadaim Shelanu has been raising awareness among local residents with the slogan “Efrat is not returning to Oct. 6.” The group has also been voicing their security concerns to local municipal leaders and Knesset members.

Social media strategist and activist Malkah Fleisher, one of the movement’s founders, has lived in Efrat for around seven years.

“Following Oct. 7…we refuse to accept the notion that in order to build or run our town we need to hire people who support terrorism against us, or could themselves be a terror threat,” she told JNS.

She went on to state that “polls have shown that an overwhelming number of residents of the P.A. support the wanton rape, murder, mutilation and kidnapping of Jewish children, women and men.”

Due to this, “We came together, a group of wives and moms, to say something very simple: We will not stand for terror supporters coming into our town. We are a town that wants to be built by lovers of Israel…not by those who want us to fail and to die.”  

According to Fleisher, in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, P.A. workers were barred from Judea and Samaria communities for several months. However, the IDF then decided to relax this policy, starting with construction sites, she said.

“We refuse to ignore and forget the lessons of Oct. 7; We are going to stand strong and make sure that we do not accept the idea that we are dependent on a population that seeks our destruction. We demand that solutions be found that do not threaten the lives of our people just to save some money,” she said.

Business owner Stephanie Treger, who has been living in Efrat for nine years and is another of the movement’s founders, told JNS her group “will work tirelessly to prevent terror supporters from entering our streets. We will meet with every Knesset member and influencer to change the pre-Oct. 7 status quo and make sure our children are safe and our grandchildren can live peacefully.”    

She explained that Sunday’s protest succeeded because when the military grants permission for P.A. workers to enter a community, it sets a specific time for them to do so. In the case of Efrat on Sunday, that window was 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

When the Jewish Israeli building contractor arrived and saw the protesters blocking the entrance, he decided to avoid confrontation, she said.

Lactation consultant Rachel Pearson, another B’yadaim Shelanu founder, has lived in Efrat for the past 15 years.

“After Oct. 7 we know P.A. Arabs cannot be trusted,” she told JNS. “We need to keep our children and families safe and we cannot go back to the way things were on Oct 6. We cannot bring them into our town, especially while we are at war with them. Our safety and our lives come before all else,” she added.

Efrat Mayor Dovi Shefler, who was elected this past March, has attended several of B’yadaim’s protests. He took to Facebook over the weekend to emphasize that the decision on whether or not to allow P.A. workers into Efrat was not up to him but “in the hands of the army.” 

He explained that these decisions would greatly impact “new building projects, cleanliness of the community, gardening and other community functions.”

One of the protesters, who asked not to be identified, told JNS that Shefler “is basically looking to the building contractors to come up with solutions, but won’t prevent them from bringing in P.A. Arabs as building is his top priority.”

The mayor claims that the workers will only be allowed into construction sites and not the community at large, “but this is a slippery slope and we must keep our families safe.” 

Israeli Hostage Naama Levy Turns 20 in Hamas Captivity

i24 News and Algemeiner Staff

Naama Levy – Courtesy of the family

Naama’s mother Ayelet Levy Shachar wrote a heart-wrenching letter to her daughter published in the New York Post.

“This is a letter no mother should ever have to write to her daughter. Today is your 20th birthday. You should be celebrating this occasion surrounded by friends and family. Instead, you are enduring your 260th day as a hostage in Gaza surrounded by terrorists,”

“Ever since your abduction, we have been working relentlessly and in every way possible to bring you home. Every day without you is a day without air. The uncertainty and dread I experience is suffocating, and each passing day that you are not with us feels like an eternity. We will not stop fighting for you until you are home.”

In Rafah, ‘there is almost no home without a tunnel,’ says Nahal Brigade Commander

TOVAH LAZAROFF

The IDF brought a small number of reporters to Gaza to speak with Nahal Brigade Commander Colonel Yair Zuckerman about the extent to which Hamas has integrated itself into civilian areas.

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DF troops operate in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. June 17, 2024.
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

A white cat walking across a partially destroyed building in Rafah’s Shabura refugee camp was the only civilian remnant of the Gaza neighborhood by the Egyptian border, which until the start of May had been crowded with Palestinians.

A bullet-riddled Sonol sign still hung on top of the rubble of what had once been a gas station.

Half destroyed concrete buildings stood, in some cases reduced to framed shells, intermixed with piles of rubble

Large swaths of sand, covered what had once been paved roads, giving Shabura a dustbowl appearance.

The IDF brought a small number of reporters in a Humvee into this desert landscape on Tuesday, to speak with Nahal Brigade Commander Colonel Yair Zuckerman about the extent to which Hamas has integrated itself into the civilian area.

Entrance of the 200 meter-long tunnel shaft in an agricultural area in the Gaza Strip, March 15, 2024. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

Just one week earlier, four IDF soldiers were killed when a bobby-trapped building exploded in this neighborhood. Now, however, an empty silence hung heavy under the bright afternoon sun, broken only by the soldiers on the road and the nearby tanks and tractors.

Zuckerman met with reporters on what he said was the 41st day of the battle for Rafah, in one of the more intact buildings in the neighborhood, whose occupants had fled.

Wearing a khaki uniform and flak jacket, he sat with them in what had once been a large second-floor apartment.

The windows were covered by blankets. The only civilian remnant in the room was a small sofa, with wooden trim and light brown fabric. 

Soldiers had written on the white walls directional signals in Hebrew: North, south, east, and west.

The electricity was run by a generator, which hummed during the entire conversation and was broken several times with distant sounds of explosions.

The table in front of Zuckerman was filled with computers. Using the wall as a screen he mapped out how, soldiers had been able to enter Rafah, staying one step ahead of Hamas strategically.

Never-ending tunnels in Rafah, posing challenges to the IDF

“Rafah is chalk-filled with tunnels,” he said, adding that, “During the last days alone, I found 17 tunnels.”

“There is almost no home without a tunnel,” he said, as he explained that the tunnels connected the homes in the neighborhood in one vast labyrinth. Holes were also broken through the walls to connect them, he said.

To illustrate his point, he showed a photograph with an open closet door and behind it, a hole in the concrete wall.

Homes are boobytrapped with wired explosives that can be detonated at a distance, Zuckerman said, as he referenced the incident last week in which four soldiers were killed when the bomb was set off in a home believed to be free of such devices.

This is a different kind of battlefield, as he described the methodical inch-by-inch fighting that has taken place in Rafah, where soldiers are battling above and below ground.

“It’s slow and painstaking,” he said, but the achievements “are significant.”

Soldiers have found caches of weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, and long-range rockets, Zuckerman explained, as he argued that it was important that the IDF be given time to complete its mission of demilitarizing the area.

The soldiers here “understand that this existential problem rests on their soldiers,” Zuckerman said, as he described a situation in which a myriad of small almost indiscernible successes, would ultimately lead to complete victory.

He did not want to quantify how long it would take to complete the mission, just that it was important to finish the job.

“We don’t want to leave until we have solved the problem,” he said.

Eight IDF soldiers killed in Rafah blast

UPDATE DESK | Israel At War

The deadly explosion was apparently caused by an improvised explosive device or an anti-tank missile.

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An IDF “Namer” armored personnel carrier. Credit: Rafael.

Eight Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed early Saturday morning, during an operation in Tel Sultan in Rafah. Details were announced by the IDF late Saturday, after families of the deceased were notified.

The only one of the fallen whose name has been released thus far is Cpt. Wassem Mahmoud. The 23-year-old deputy company commander in the Combat Engineering Corps’ 601st Battalion was from the Druze town of Beit Hann in northern Israel.

According to IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari, the incident occurred when one of the vehicles of a convoy exploded, killing Mahmoud and the other seven soldiers in the “Namer” armored personnel carrier.

The deadly blast, which Hagari said is under investigation, was apparently caused by an improvised explosive device or by an anti-tank missile.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement Saturday night following the incident: “Citizens of Israel, today we paid a heart-rending price in our just war in defense of our homeland,” adding that, “our hearts are shattered before this terrible loss. The entire people of Israel embraces the dear families in their most difficult hour of grief.” I stand by our brave fighters and commanders, who are imbued with the sacred mission to defeat our enemies and return our hostages.”

Netanyahu stated that, “despite the heavy and unsettling price, we must cling to the goals of the war: The destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the return of all of our hostages, making certain that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel and the return of our residents securely to their homes in both the north and the south.

“We are in the midst of a very difficult war. The war is being conducted on several fronts, including the international front. We are ready for many additional challenges. It is at this time that we must show our people’s strength of spirit, thanks to which we have overcome all of our enemies. So it will be this time as well.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant similarly released a statement adding: “The pain that comes with such loss is immense. My heart and my thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the fallen. I stand with the entire nation of Israel in remembering and honoring the heroes who fell while defending their people and their homeland.”

This is a developing story.