Hamas releases video of hostage Noa Marciano saying she was killed in Gaza bombing
Hamas on Monday released a video of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier captured during the October 7 attacks on Israel, containing excerpts of her speech at the start of the conflict and then images of her lifeless body. Hamas said Thursday that she had been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
The Israeli military released a statement that appeared to confirm the authenticity of the video, which it condemned as “psychological terrorism.”
The soldier, Noa Marciano, served in an intelligence unit and was stationed at a lookout post on Kibbutz Nahal Oz when Hamas attacked.
“Our hearts are with the Marciano family,” Israeli military officials said in a statement, noting that a military representative had visited the family and informed them of the video’s release. Military officials pledged to support the Marcianos and the families of other hostages and vowed to “use all means, both intelligence and operational, to bring the hostages home.”
The video shows Ms. Marciano speaking into a camera and providing identifying information about herself and her family. She says she is being held in Gaza and has been there with other hostages for about four days. She begs the Israeli army to stop attacking the area. She says the explosions are close, persistent and could harm the hostages. The video ends with still images of Ms. Marciano’s lifeless body, smeared with blood and spread out on a white sheet.
In the weeks since the war began, a handful of images and videos of hostages have emerged. Last week, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another extremist group in Gaza, released videos of two hostages – Hanna Katzir, 77, and Yagil Yaakov, 13 – asking Israeli officials to stop bombing Gaza. The Times has not verified the videos.
On Monday, a video purporting to be of an Israeli-Russian academic, Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was kidnapped in Iraq in March was published by Iraqi television and on social media. In the video – which The Times has not verified – she speaks in Hebrew and urges the families of the October 7 hostages to do everything they can to stop the war in Gaza. If verified, it would be the first image of Ms. Tsurkov since her arrest.