Harrowing footage of the six Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas terrorists in August 2024 was released Thursday night by their families after being aired on Israeli television, providing a uniquely extensive glimpse into what the hostages went through during their first months in Hamas captivity.
The videos included footage of the captives marking Hanukkah in December 2023, with the release of the clips coming days before the Jewish holiday begins this year. While the footage was filmed by Hamas terrorists for propaganda purposes, the material is unlike other clips published during the war that showed hostages reading statements evidently dictated by their captors.
In the clips, recovered by the Israel Defense Forces during military operations in the Gaza Strip, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino, and Alex Lobanov are seen together in a tunnel. The material, hours of which were recovered, had been shown only to their families until it was partly broadcast by Channel’s “Uvda” investigative program.
The captives are seen lighting Hanukkah candles fashioned out of paper cups and singing the Hanukkah song “Ma’oz Tzur.” The hostages were also filmed marking New Year’s Eve 2024 and eating a piece of fruit, as their captors attempted to show a different reality of captivity.
At one point, Goldberg-Polin likened the hostages’ plight to that of the Jews living in Nazi Germany.
“There’s that picture of the Hanukkiah with a [Nazi flag] above it,” Goldberg-Polin is heard reflecting in one of the clips.
Later on in the clip, one of the hostages is heard joking, “Where are the sufganiyot?”
Hersh responded, “We’re waiting for Roladin in Israel,” referring to the bakery known for making fanciful donuts during the Hanukkah season.
Footage found by the IDF in Gaza and published on December 11, 2025, shows hostages Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Alexander Lobanov and Hersh Goldberg-Polin in a Gaza tunnel where they are were held captive in late 2023. (Courtesy)
The hostages’ voices can be heard as they sing Hanukkah songs and discuss religious differences in their upbringings and lives.
The Hanukkah footage was taken after 80 days of captivity, eight months before all six were murdered by their captors.
The clips were ultimately not released by the terror group. Hamas did issue clips of some of the six hostages reading statements, both before and after their deaths.
The footage also shows the hostages playing cards and backgammon while lying on thin mattresses in their tunnel cell. Goldberg-Polin perches his left arm on a pillow; the lower part was blown off by a grenade thrown by a terrorist during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, at a field shelter near the Nova rave in southern Israel.
At one point in a clip, Lobanov is filmed opening a packaged cake and eating it, and saying, “Advertising.”
In another segment, earlier in their captivity, he shaves Goldberg-Polin and Sarusi’s hair, remarking to them about a similar scene in the 2002 Holocaust film “The Pianist.”
Camaraderie, insistent survival
The staged nature of the videos is evident in the hostages’ awkward smiles and the camera’s focus on details, such as the packaged cakes left on their mattresses or the pillows propped behind them, meant to show the care their captors were ostensibly providing.
The six are thinning but not yet skeletal. Yerushalmi, a petite woman, already looks malnourished; when her body was found eight months later, she weighed just 36 kilos (79 pounds). During his time in captivity, Lobanov’s weight dropped from 86 kilograms (190 pounds) to 60 (132 pounds).
Functional but clearly weakened, they sit together, playing card games and even kibbitzing with one another.
This video published on December 11, 2025, after being obtained by the IDF from Gaza, shows hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi lighting Hanukkah candles in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip in late 2023. (Courtesy)
When a Hamas captor would enter the room, his face covered with a green Hamas bandanna, they would interact with him when necessary, the clips show, with Gat seen asking for medical care for Sarusi, who had unattended wounds.
There’s a clear sense of camaraderie, as these six hostages take care of one another, insistently surviving, awaiting the salvation that never came.
When the bodies of the six hostages were discovered in late August 2024, they were found in a narrow tunnel, having been shot multiple times at close range, surrounded by bottles filled with dark urine and a plastic bucket used as a rudimentary toilet.
The six, Goldberg-Polin, 23, Yerushalmi, 24, Danino, 25, Lobanov, 32, Gat, 40, and Sarusi, 27, were killed by their captors in that tunnel in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood on August 29, 2024, and were discovered by troops two days later.
The military recovered unpublished footage of other hostages during the ground offensive in Gaza, some of which has been released to the public by their families, though none has been as extensive as the material made public on Thursday.
‘I know he was with those wonderful people, and I know he loved them’
Family members of each hostage were interviewed by “Uvda,” describing the intense feelings of seeing their loved ones alive and speaking in the videos.
“It’s very confusing, it feels like he’s right there,” said Rachel Goldberg-Polin. “And it was hours of footage.”
Almog Sarusi’s father noted how his son was always filmed smiling. During the Hanukkah video, Sarusi grins widely, wishing everyone a happy holiday while hoping to be home soon.
“What heroes,” said Rachel Goldberg-Polin. “Six young luminous people who did everything right and they stayed alive and they did their part. And for us to claim we brought them back, in bags, bags of children to their parents — please don’t count Hersh among the people you saved.”
At least three of the six were badly hurt. Goldberg-Polin had surgery on his blown-off arm in Gaza after meeting Or Danino, who demanded as much from their captors. Danino, an off-duty officer who went back to rescue friends at the Nova festival, was shot in the back, while Sarusi was also shot during the October 7 attack.
“We never knew Hersh with one arm; we only knew Hersh with both of his arms,” said Jon Polin. “It was 400 days later when we buried him. When I picture him, it’s with one arm. We were planning for him to come back with one arm.”
Eden Yerushalmi’s mother and sisters spoke about how they had hoped Eden was held captive with Carmel, after hearing about how the Kibbutz Be’eri native had taken care of some of the children taken hostage before they were freed during the November 2023 ceasefire.
Somehow, knowing that Yerushalmi was with Gat, a woman who was a little older and wiser, initially eased their anguish.
Eshel Gat, Carmel’s father, whose wife Kinneret was killed on October 7, revealed how he saw his daughter being taken captive that day from their Kibbutz Be’eri home, an image that repeatedly crops up in his mind as he mourns his loved ones.
The families also discussed their deep anger and dismay with the Israeli government after it decided to continue fighting in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood in July 2024, knowing there were hostages there.
Yigal Sarusi said he met with then minister of strategic affairs Ron Dermer the next month, and was told that the military would not go near the hostages while operating in Rafah.
The Goldberg-Polins and Elhanan Danino, father of Or Danino, recalled what they described as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hampering of efforts to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement, instead pushing ahead in Rafah.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin described a July 2024 White House meeting attended by both US president Joe Biden and Netanyahu, and the clear sense that the premier was going to push ahead with military operations in Gaza.
“The meeting ended, and we looked at each other and said, ‘We’re screwed,’” said Polin.
Danino spoke about his deep ties with ultra-Orthodox Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, a member of Netanyahu’s coalition, and described asking him to leave the government in order to bring the hostages home.
“Who left my son there?” said Danino. “Deri Dermer.”
Michal Lobanov, Alex Lobanov’s wife, said she frequently imagines her husband’s last moments, as the six were found next to one another in that narrow tunnel.
She also stressed that the videos were “completely stage-managed clips that Hamas forced them to be filmed in.”
“I imagined he said Shema Yisrael and they shot him,” said Yigal Sarusi.
Goldberg-Polin said she repeats the prayer twice each night, once for herself and once for Hersh, because she does not know if he had time to recite Shema Yisrael before he was killed.
“I pray it was fast, and I know he was with those wonderful people, and I know he loved them,” she said.
With reporting by Emanuel Fabian.
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