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Jerusalem, July 3 (EFE).- The Hostages and Missing Families Forum released this Thursday a compilation of images recorded by Hamas of the kidnapped people to ask for a ceasefire agreement that guarantees their return, a few days before the trip of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the U.S. to meet with President Donald Trump.
The video begins with statements from the American magnate, who assures that the United States "wants to bring the hostages back." Following this, the forum strings together images of captives in Gaza that the Islamist group Hamas has been publishing throughout the Israeli offensive against the Strip.
"We don't feel human," says captive Maxim Herkin (sitting next to another hostage, Bar Kuperstein) in the images. The video in which they appear was released by Hamas in April, but the families of both had not authorized its publication until now. The rest of the images had been published previously.
Herkin, 35, was born in Donetsk (Ukraine), while Kuperstein, 23, is from the Israeli city of Holon, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Both were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, at the Nova music festival, just a few kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip and the scene of one of the largest massacres of that day.
The video concludes by showing two phrases: "Bring back the kidnapped. End the fight. We will bring them back. We will rise again." In this context, the statement from the Forum released with the images demands a comprehensive agreement on Gaza "that guarantees the return of every last hostage."
"This is the moral and proper act, one that does not require separation between siblings and immoral decisions of a kidnapped person over another," the Forum assures.
This way, the organization rejects the idea of a phased agreement like the one on the table in the current indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, under the mediation of Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.
The proposal, attributed to the White House's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, includes a 60-day truce in which 10 live captives and 15 deceased would be released.
A total of 50 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom an estimated 20 are alive, so the release of the rest would be pending an extension of the ceasefire.
During the ceasefire that began on January 19, the release of the hostages was divided: 33 in the first phase and the rest in a hypothetical second phase that the parties never negotiated and did not take place, as Israel broke the truce on March 18.
Families released the video shortly before Netanyahu travels to the United States to meet with Trump (on Monday, according to the American press), in a visit in which both are expected to address the situation in Gaza.
Although Israel has supported Witkoff's proposal from the beginning, Hamas demands the end of the war as a prerequisite for a ceasefire.
