Hamas releases video of Israel-American hostage before death, calls for prisoner exchange

Hamas releases video of Israel-American hostage before death, calls for prisoner exchange

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, broadcast on Thursday a video of an Israeli American prisoner, who was killed in the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza and was among the captives whose bodies were recovered a few days ago from a tunnel in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The slain prisoner, Hirsch Goldberg Paulin, asked the US President Joe Biden, US Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken and all US citizens to do what they could to “stop the war and this madness in Gaza” and to return him home.

He pointed out that he had just turned 23 years old four days prior to his arrest from a concert in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

He highlighted the extent of the suffering he experienced in the Strip, saying that he does not remember the last time in which he saw the sun, or the last time he inhaled fresh air.

He stressed that the worst is that the Israeli government insists to go on with its aggression “so that it does not bear responsibility and can evade reaching an agreement.”

Paulin, who was born in California and residing in occupied Jerusalem, said that since his arrival in Gaza, he had been struggling to survive with no medical assistance and insufficient amounts of food and water.

He sent an emotional message to his family, confirming that he knows that his family is exerting every effort to return him home, asking them to stay strong for him.

Last April, the Al-Qassam Brigades published another video for the prisoner Paulin in which he attacked the Netanyahu government and accused him of abandoning the prisoners and failing to work on their release.

Source: The Palestinian Information Center