‘Let the Whole World See the Evil and Understand the Cruelty’

September 11, 2024

by: Yoav Zitun and Roi Rubinstein ~ Ynetnews

Wednesday, 11 September 2024 | The Israel Defense Forces [IDF] spokesman on Tuesday evening screened the video of the tunnel under Rafah in Gaza where hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat and Alex Lobanov were held and executed at the end of last month. The army first presented the video to the families and they agreed to show it to the public as well. In the video, one sees IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari going down into the low tunnel and not being able to stand upright inside it and describing what he sees there and how the hostages were held in it.

The bodies of the hostages were found in several separate places in the tunnel, which was about 20 meters [65.6 ft.] deep and spread over about 120 meters [393.7 ft.]. There were no toilets in the tunnel and the forces discovered bottles of urine and a rudimentary septic tank there. “Let the whole world see the evil and understand the cruelty,” Hagari said.

The murdered hostages survived almost 11 months in captivity and were held in a tunnel in inhumane conditions, while starving and living without basic hygiene. The hostages had very little food in captivity, which resulted in significant weight loss. Eden Yerushalmi’s body was found weighing only 36 kilograms [79 lb.].

At a press conference Tuesday evening, Hagari noted that the video was also distributed in English, “so that the whole world can see the evil of Hamas and know how it treats hostages with cruelty.”

In response to Ynet’s question about whether the IDF has a strategy to keep the hostages who remain in captivity alive, Hagari said that the IDF is “discussing with the political echelon how to keep them alive.” When asked whether Hamas will send Yahya Sinwar through the Philadelphi Corridor to Egypt and from there to Iran, Hagari replied that he did not have “information” about such a plan.

The video was shown to the ministers at the meeting of the political security cabinet on Monday, and they expressed shock at it, calling the Hamas captors “monsters” and “animals,” saying, “This just shows who we’re dealing with.” Sources present at the meeting described it as “extremely tough to watch.” The atmosphere in the room was tense and the video underscored both the brutality of Hamas and the dire situation of the remaining hostages.

The tunnel where the hostages were kept came out of a house and the shaft that led to it was under the floor of a child’s room.

The forces had to break the floor to reach the shaft and from there trace the route of the tunnel. The findings also show that apparently two terrorists shot dead the six hostages between Thursday (August 29) and Friday (August 30) and then left through the front door and locked it behind them.

The same iron top door, which the fighters uprooted two days later when they arrived, was locked on the hostages during their captivity in the tunnel. According to the dry food, the little water that was in the tunnel, the bottles of urine and the septic tank that was used by the hostages as a toilet, the army estimates that the hostages were held there for several weeks at least. Before that, they were moved from place to place, possibly from the Khan Younis area.

The tunnel in which Qadi [Farhan al-Qadi, a Bedouin who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and rescued by Israel forces from Gaza on August 27] was held was about 700 meters [765 yd.] away from the tunnel of the six executed hostages, but between the two tunnels was an engineering barrier. It is not yet clear whether it was caused by IDF activity in the area or a deliberate collapse by Hamas operatives.

The security officials said at the cabinet meeting where the video was screened that other hostages are being held captive under similar conditions. There are 101 hostages currently being held captive, with many of them believed to be dead.

Shirit Yerushalmi, mother of murdered hostage Eden, said that the IDF spokesman showed them the video on Saturday. “He couldn’t say how long Eden was there, but according to what they found, it is estimated that it was for weeks. We were shocked. The tunnel is very narrow and stifling. There was no fan or lighting. There was a battery and headlamps, a lot of drinking bottles and energy bars. That’s all in terms of food.

“There were mattresses like the army’s, the small dark ones,” she said. “If they don’t lie down, they have to be placed against the wall so that they can pass through. It’s not even a tunnel, it’s a passage through the tunnel. The width is the width of a mattress and the height is low. Hagari said he couldn’t stand upright in it.

“There was no toilet or bath,” the mother added about the conditions in which her daughter was kept. “There was a bucket there, full bottles of urine. The conditions were terrible. There was hardly any air. I think what held them together, especially Eden, was their togetherness. They were six heroic hostages and each of them is a whole world to their family. I believe they strengthened one another. Knowing that Eden was with another girl also encouraged me, that she was not a woman alone. It encouraged us even more because we knew the people from the stories and the articles.

“Watching the video I felt shock,” she added. “My heart broke. It hurt. The tunnel is so narrow. There is no air. It’s so hot. It was very difficult for us as a family to understand where she was. We also don’t know where she was before, no one can tell us.

“They survived 11 months, and to think that they were so close to getting out and then to be murdered.”

Posted on September 11, 2024

Source: (Excerpt of an article originally published by Ynetnews on September 10, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: Israel Defense Forces/Flickr.com

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