Hamas’s military wing released a video on Saturday of Liri Albag, one of some 250 people taken hostage by the group in its attack on Israel, as Israeli and Hamas officials held further rounds of indirect cease-fire talks via mediators in Qatar.
Roughly 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza nearly 15 months since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, prompted Israel’s war in Gaza. Talks to free them have sputtered since a weeklong truce in November 2023 that allowed for the release of 105 Israeli and foreign captives.
Ms. Albag, 19, served in a unit of lookouts charged with monitoring possible threats along the border with Gaza. During the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, Palestinian fighters overran the military base where she served, killing more than 60 soldiers and abducting Ms. Albag and six other female soldiers.
The video released on Saturday was edited and featured Ms. Albag speaking for about three and a half minutes. Ms. Albag said she had been held for over 450 days, but that could not be definitively confirmed.
In a statement, Ms. Albag’s family said that “her severe psychological distress is evident” in the video, and the footage had “torn our hearts to pieces.” They asked leaders to “make decisions as if your own children were there.”
“She is just dozens of kilometers away from us, yet for 456 days we have been unable to bring her home,” the family said.
Human rights groups have said Hamas’s practice of making and releasing hostage videos was inhumane treatment that could amount to a war crime. Israeli officials have labeled the practice a form of psychological warfare.
Both sides are under pressure from the incoming Trump administration to reach agreements on a cease-fire and the release of the hostages as soon as possible. President-elect Donald J. Trump has warned that there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY” unless the hostages are released by his inauguration on Jan. 20.
But Mr. Trump has not detailed how he would break the deadlock between Israel and Hamas. Both sides have voiced seemingly irreconcilable demands in their months of negotiations, thwarting numerous diplomatic efforts by the Biden administration.
On Friday night, Hamas said its officials were resuming meetings in the Qatari capital of Doha to reach a cease-fire deal with Israel to free the hostages. In a statement, the group reiterated its longstanding demands for Israel to end the war and withdraw from Gaza.
Israel said earlier this week it was also sending a delegation of midlevel security officials to meet with mediators in Qatar. But it is far from clear whether Israel’s leaders are willing to fulfill Hamas’s conditions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that the war will not end until the destruction of Hamas in Gaza.
The families of the Israeli hostages fear every day their loved ones remain in captivity could be their last. After the release of the video featuring Ms. Albag, the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, an advocacy group, called on both sides to meet Mr. Trump’s deadline.
“Every day in Hamas’s hell in Gaza poses an immediate risk of death to the living hostages,” the group said in a statement. “Sixteen days remain until the ultimatum set by President-elect Trump. We must not lose this historic window of opportunity.”
Israel pressed on with its military campaign in Gaza on Saturday. The enclave’s Civil Defense, a rescue agency under the Hamas-run interior ministry, reported multiple airstrikes in which at least 11 people were killed and more than 20 were missing under rubble across the enclave. The agency does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its totals. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
