The Inhumane Cost of Conflict

"Humanitarian aid to Gaza?"

"No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter  until the Israeli abductees are returned home."

Israel Katz, Israeli Defense Minister 

Many Gaza residents are suffering from long-term respiratory and eye issues due to using wood for cooking instead of scarce gas and electricity.   Photo: Fadi Thabet, Nuseirat

 

War is an unkind enemy of humanity. In Gaza, Palestinians suffer the impact of a war that the governing Hamas terrorists provoked. The savagery of the invasion of southern Israel by thousands of terrorists linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, lead by Hamas operatives was an exercise in unspeakable sadistic atrocities in the mass rape of girls and women, the  anguish they suffered through torture, the massacre of children, parents, the elderly,  and the abduction of infants, ailing men and women, held in Gaza to be used as trade pawns for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

Proof exists that civilian Palestinians followed the terrorists in their invasion to prey on civilians living in kibbutzim that had employed Palestinians from Gaza in farm labour. Trusted Palestinians who broke bread with their Israeli employers, and who in turn revealed to Hamas commanders planning the invasion, valuable details of the farming villages and their security protocols. Israeli hostages were held not only by Hamas terrorists, but by Palestinian civilians as well; mistreatment of the hostages was universal; humiliation, rape, deprivation of fresh air, of food and water.

Israeli children, women and men who were forced to live in tunnels, deprived of sunlight, of hygiene, of medicine for chronic health conditions, whom even the International Red Cross made no effort to make contact with. The threatened, abused and starved Israeli hostages served a purpose that the terrorists exploited; held in part by civilians working with Hamas, a significant number perished. Despite the Israel Defense Forces search for members of Hamas with the firm intention of permanently destroying the group's capacity to ever again prey on Israelis and Jews, missiles continue to rain down from Gaza to Israel.

 

Palestinians crowd around a bakery in Gaza. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP

 

How likely is it that any nation whose military is on the offensive would constrain their military targeting to protect civilians as Israel does? The civilian casualty rate in Gaza has been steep, as it has been in any conflict anywhere in the world. Hamas commanding elites made it clear in public fora that they have no intention of relenting in their goal of destroying Israel and murdering Jews; pledging to repeat the October 7, 2023 butchery over and over again until no Jews would be left. 

Gazans are now and have been for a year, living with major life inconveniences. Apart from the need to constantly move from one area in the Gaza Strip to another in advance of IDF planned attacks on Hamas infrastructure, their impermanence has necessitated that they live rough amongst destroyed and crumbling infrastructure  in many areas. There is a lack of potable running water, and no electricity. The lethal designs of Hamas created complete destruction, insecurity and the potential for death in the Gaza population, given the terrorist group's propensity to situate themselves and their weaponry in the midst of heavily populated areas.

 

Israel launched retaliatory strikes on Gaza after the attacks by Hamas  Reuters

 

"Every night is a struggle for us", 36-year-old Abu Amra says, living in Deir al Balah, central Gaza where she now cooks over a fire and laundry is done by hand. Israel, pre-Oct 7 attack supplied Gaza with electricity. In the immediate aftermath of the atrocities, the electricity to Gaza via Israel was shut down. The Palestinian population of Gaza which, in the vast majority favours Hamas rule and approves of the attack, whose result is the reason they now suffer may or may not now regret that choice. More likely they credit Israel alone with their suffering.

The electricity infrastructure of Gaza suffered over the years as a result of previous conflicts that Hamas had been responsible for initiating. The funding that Hamas has received from humanitarian groups, the European Union, the United Nations and Western democracies in general  has not gone into upgrading the civil infrastructure of the Strip, much less its electricity and water grids. It was used instead to create the massive, sometimes-sophisticated tunnel system that runs under the territory.

And while there are many civilians in Gaza for whom life has become a misery of scarcity of everything one depends upon in life in the modern era, there are those among them who view the current situation as a splendid opportunity to become wealthy over those scarcities and the misery of their fellow citizens. Like 23-year-old Mohammed Samra who bought solar panels for a new family business in central Gaza where he charges one shekel to charge a cellphone.

Police officers keep guard at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip [File: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Russia's Barbaric Geothermal Drone Scheme

"We, from our side, must do everything so that next year this war ends by diplomatic means. This is very important." 

"This is their approach [the United States], their promise to their society [quick deal between Kyiv and Moscow], it is also very important to them. He [Trump] is on the side of supporting Ukraine, he appreciates our strength, integrity and courage."

"[Ukraine should not be] left alone with the Russian Federation [to craft a solution to the conflict]. For us, the victory means a strong Ukraine. Whether that's in diplomacy or on the battlefield is another question."

"But we have already proved that 'sit and listen' rhetoric does not work with us. Sitting, talking and agreeing on nothing -- this is what is beneficial for Putin."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

A Ukrainian soldier examines a thermobaric drone launched by Russia  AP

 

A small number of highly destructive thermobaric drones have been created by a high-tech factory in central Russia. The same factory also produces huge swarms of inexpensive decoys. The use of the drones -- both the destructive models, relatively few in number due to the expense of production and the decoys produced in much greater number are an expression of a new tactic devised by Moscow to overwhelm Kyiv, forcing it to respond to all the drones in fear of one of the thermobaric types wreaking chaos and greater deaths. In the process of responding, the plan is for Ukraine to unnecessarily, out of caution, use its dwindling stock of defensive weaponry to shoot down the drones, expending in the process defensive funding. 

Vladimir Putin's mission to destroy Ukraine and reap the benefits of acquiring more Ukrainian territory to be folded into Greater Russia doesn't leave much hope for Russia to become a willing partner for peace  until its objectives have been achieved. At which time Ukraine will be geographically eviscerated at the cost of more lives and ruined civic infrastructure. And while Kyiv is anxious to protect the lives of its citizens, the Kremlin seems disposed to consider its fighting men expendable, including the new contingents of North Korean fighters now under Russian command.

Russia calls its drone scheme Operation False Target, its intention is to force Ukraine to needlessly use its scarce resources to save lives and hope to spare further destruction of critical infrastructure. As for distinguishing the relatively harmless drones from their look-alike thermobaric drones, it cannot be done by radar and even electronics experts cannot distinguish which drones fleeting through the skies are the deadly ones. Russia's is a devilish plan to continue on its path of destruction in Ukraine. The first weekend of November saw 20 hours in the Kyiv region under air alert. In October some 1,889 drones were launched by Moscow.

Over 50% of the drones that target Ukraine are unarmed decoys with up to 75% being produced out of a factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Russia; a highly sensitive industry. A deadly variant of the Shahed unmanned aircraft is also produced at the same factory, armed with thermobaric warheads. These vacuum bombs create a vortex of high pressure and heat capable of penetrating the thickest walls while sucking out all the oxygen encountered in their path. When they strike buildings Alabuga's thermobaric drones are particularly deadly since they are loaded as well with ball bearings to cause massive damage beyond the superheated blast.

These deadly drones are estimated to make up between 3 and 5 percent of all drones. Their physical effects on people even outside the initial blast site, are grotesquely lethal; collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage included. The human toll is of little interest to Russia, however. They see great conflict benefits in the drones' use. An unarmed drone costs much less than the $50,000 to produce an armed Shahed drone. Decoys with live-feed cameras also have their special functions, allowing geolocation of Ukraine's air defences, relaying the information to Russia just before they crash.

 

DJI Matrice reconnaissance drones, bought during 'The Army of Drones' program, are set up ready for test flights in the Kyiv region, Ukraine. (Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images)

Risen Tide of Antisemitism in Canada

"[Samidoun, also known as Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network], claims to be campaigning for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails."

"Many Palestinian prisoners for which Samidoun advocates for release have ties to terrorism, assassinations and countless attacks against Israel."

"Samidoun's ideology revolves exclusively around the worldview that Israel and Zionism are the greatest danger to the Middle East and the world."

Public Safety Canada

"The Vancouver Police Major Crime Section, with assistance from the Vancouver Police Department Emergency Response Team, executed a search warrant yesterday at a residence in the 1800 block of East 1st Avenue, as part of an ongoing hate crime investigation under Section 319 of the Criminal Code."

"One person was initially taken into custody and has now been released pending completion of the investigation."

VPD media spokesperson Tania Visintin

Social media posts from pro-Palestinian activists supporting Kates and Samidoun expressed outrage and questioned the “excessive” police presence involved in the Nov. 14 raid (top left, via Global News) to execute a search warrant in a public incitement of hatred investigation. (Via Instagram)

"At times, the community [Vancouver and wider B.C. Jewish community] feels alone… Jewish businesses have been targeted, Jewish members of the community have been targeted in schools, at university, in the workplace."

"We have seen the glorification of terrorism at the hands of members of Samidoun [including at weekly protests on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery]."

"[The community is feeling] threatened and unsafe."

"We believe that it is crucial for civil society that Charlotte Kates be charged immediately. She’s now the leader of a terror organization."

"Let the courts decide."

Nico Slobinsky, vice-president, Pacific Region, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Since the Palestinian terrorists' attack on southern Israel led by Hamas in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Samidoun, along with other Palestinian agitprop group have been inciting to violent antisemitism in the guise of criticizing 'Zionism', and organizing ongoing weekly and sometimes daily marches, protests and groups harassing Jewish communities and Jewish-owned businesses. Crowds of Palestinian-flag-waving antisemites have gathered outside hospitals, old-age retirement homes, synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres to shout invectives and threats against Israel veiled with 'From the River to the sea".

Clearly antisocial verging on psychopathic activities like blocking streets and  highways with marchers shouting 'Intifada!' and 'Final Solution' have inspired no reaction by authorities at any level, anywhere across the country. Jews are left to fend for themselves against the risen tide of antisemitism, viral in its endless permutations of isolation and hate-messaging. The federal government, much less provincial or municipal authorities have been satisfied to sit back and 'not notice' that a cultural/ethnic/religious minority in Canada's equal society with its guarantees of security for all, have been besieged for over a year.

And then when it became obvious that Jews were the appetizer, and once that went down well, the main course would commence, when Palestinian, pro-Hamas groups and organizers turned on Canada itself as a purportedly racist, colonialist, imperialist country perched on land not their own, taken by force from its original denizens, and shouts of derogatory derision damning Canada along with the attempted burning of a Canadian flag by Samidoun supporters moved the government to finally outlaw Samidoun as a terrorist group, closely aligned with the already-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

Despite Samidoun being listed as a terrorist organization in Canada last month, its co-founder and director Charlotte Kates has been proceeding with the group, continuing to organize marches that demonize Israel, calling for its destruction, and threatening Canadian Jews' security, with no moves by either the Federal government or law and order to step in and put a halt to those activities. Listing Samidoun as a terrorist entity was a first step, but it seemed that following through to stop its activities was a step too far.

Now, finally, the Vancouver home of Charlotte Kates, out of which the management of the Samidoun group and its many branches abroad is located, was raided by the Vancouver Police Department's Emergency Response Team. A search warrant was executed relating to a hate crime investigation. During the raid, a flash-bang grenade was used, resulting in windows of the house being broken. It was explained by a police spokesperson that the emergency response team is "often used in the execution of search warrants when we believe there could be a risk to the public or a risk to the officers".

 

Time for justice and the Canadian court system to work in tandem with the police departments of the nation, in coordination with government, serious about condemning racism and terrorism and putting a halt to its expansion within Canada. 

The Arab/Muslim/Palestinian Lobby in Canada

"While we stand firmly behind protections against discrimination for al communities, including Palestinians, [anti-Palestinian racism] crosses a line by targeting expressions of Jewish identity linked to Israel."

"Holding differing opinions is not a breach of human rights."

Richard Marceau, vice-president, external affairs, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"[A meeting with the prime minister took place to] highlight how Islamophobia, and its intersections with anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, continues to harm our social fabric, undermines pluralism and poses a direct threat to our democracy."

Amira Elghawaby, anti-Islamophobia representative

"Racism is an appropriate construct for describing the experiences of Palestinians."

"Israel's treatment of Palestinians is ... at its essence[,] predicated on the superiority and dominance of one group of people over another."

"A form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives."

Arab Canadian Lawyers Association 2022 report

Amira Elghawaby, Canada's special representative on combating Islamophobia. Photo by Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press

 

The very height of unredeemable hypocrisy expressed by the Arab Lawyers slandering Israel's treatment of Palestinians, typical and predictable of Muslim interpretation of justice, when it is Palestinian violence meted out in constant death threats and active attempts and successes in random attacks killing Jews within Israel that is the real issue in the ongoing standoff between Israel and the Palestinians. Surpassed in inhumane savagery by the Palestinian terrorist attack led by Hamas on October 7 2023, when  thousands breached the border fence in southern Israel to slaughter 1,200 Jews and rape innumerable Israeli girls and women, mutilating many in sheer sadistic inhumanity.

Added to the fact that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian 'public relation' campaigns endlessly stereotype, defame and dehumanize Jews and the State of Israel, entirely reversing reality in pursuit of demonizing the Jewish State and Jews worldwide as oppressors of Palestinian victims of Jewish cruelty. Now, those who have celebrated the October 7, 2023 massacre of innocent Israeli civilians and who portray those rapes and murders as just desserts in punishment for those who victimize Palestinians -- which is to say a state that defends its citizens from mass psychopathy -- are lobbying Canada's government to make it a crime to slander Palestinians.

Irony upon irony; the very people who expend endless time and energy on slandering Jews insist the world is obliged to protect them from opinions garnered from their violent performance in mass murder, along with their anti-social machinations in never-ending loud and sometimes-violent, always-threatening marches and demonstrations calling for the destruction of the Jewish State and the ouster of Jews from Canada; to 'send them back to Europe' -- ostensibly to the Holocaust ovens of annihilation -- continue to portray themselves as victims, not the victimizers that they are.

The concern within the Jewish community is that accepting the thrust of the argument that Muslims deserve a law that would outlaw criticism of Palestinians and by extension Muslims who have, in the past year, broken myriad Canadian laws with impunity, it would become a criminal offence for Jews to criticize the mobs who threaten them on the streets, in their communities and their businesses. The issue of conflating pro-Israel declarations with racism, in the process insulating Palestinian interpretations of history and present performances from criticism is beyond incomprehensible to a logical, neutral mind.

 

Adil Charkaoui, speaking Arabic, denounced "Zionist aggressors" and called on Allah to "kill the enemies of the people of Gaza and to spare none of them."Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

At the very time that Canada's civil compact of community equality and plural social mores of acceptance and civil tolerance of others are being turned into a psycho-social morass of harassment, threats and unsubstantiated claims of Jewish supremacy plotting the genocide of Palestinians, the Palestinians, their defenders and allies are accusing Canadian Jews of plotting against them and turning society into a critical mass of Palestinian denigration. The classic of victimizer cloaking itself as victim.

"Denying the Nakba" will become grounds of prosecution should the Arab Canadian Lawyers group's definition of 'racism' against Palestinians -- a group that can hardly be claimed to be a race to begin with -- be agreed to by the Liberal government. The 'Nakba' is a term used to describe the displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war when the nascent Jewish State declared itself and combined Arab armies marched on Israel to destroy it, and 750,000 Arabs calling themselves Palestinians fled, to become refugees while believing Israel would fall, and they could immediately return to claim the land their very own.

Balance that against the estimated 800,000 Arab Jews who were expelled, their properties taken, by the Arab countries where they had lived for centuries in the diaspora forced upon indigenous Jews by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC, dispersing Judeans from their ancestral lands. Jewish organizations are concerned that equating the Holocaust with the Palestinian 'Nakba' "risks opening the door to Holocaust minimization".

"These comparisons are problematic because they equate the Holocaust -- a systematic industrial-scale genocide in which six million Jews were targeted and exterminated solely for their identity -- with the displacement of approximately750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War."

"This framing not only undermines the historical uniqueness and gravity of the Holocaust but also fosters perceptions that Jews are committing atrocities similar to those they endured."

"By blurring these distinctions, anti-Palestinian racism diminishes the specific trauma of the Holocaust and undermines the educational impact of Holocaust memory."

Richard Marceau, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Canada had accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism for the purpose of combating forms of anti-Zionism; a distinct form of antisemitism. The IHRA definition was added to Canada's anti-racism strategy in 2019. It states "manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel conceived as a Jewish collectivity". As an example, "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour"; as well, "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis".

All of which, manifestly, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel lobby in Canada has engaged in, fulsomely, loudly and in public demonstrations of noxious and society-disturbing magnitude. Justin Trudeau was the recipient of criticism for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in a strategy update of Canada's anti-racism to guide the federal anti-racism program. Liberal MP Salma Zahid faulted the Prime Minister for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in a strategy update this year. Now she purrs on the strength of the meeting held by Amira Elghawaby with Justin Trudeau.

Liberal member of Parliament Salma Zahid talks to reporters as she arrives to a caucus meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /The Canadian Press

"I welcome the prime minister's commitment to recognizing and adopting a definition of anti-Palestinian racism."

"In Canada in recent months, we have seen increasing levels of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism."

"Before we can fight against such hatred, we need to be able to recognize what it is and what it looks like."

"I look forward to working with the government to move this forward."

Liberal MP Salma Zahid

Honouring a Mass Murderer

"I asked them to track down the anonymous notice for a vigil at City Hall. No organization exists. No vigil is planned."

"The city will not interfere with a peaceful vigil, as long as all laws and city bylaws are adhered to."

"I just want to point out -- and I'm not being facetious -- Nelson Mandela was declared a terrorist by the United States of America  until the year 2008. Your terrorist and somebody else's terrorist may be two different things."

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish

"This attack on the mayor serves only to distract from the genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where thousands of civilians, including women and children, have lost their lives."

The Muslim Council of Peel

"By sharing a letter from the council that includes inflammatory language and falsehoods about Israel  she [the mayor] has only further divided our community."

"Since the troubling post about the November 26 vigil became public, only the Muslim Council of Peel was consulted -- excluding Jewish partners and constituents who are most directly impacted."

"The organizers of the vigil, Firas Al Najim and so-called "Canadian Defenders for Human Rights' have now confirmed it is authentic and is moving forward."

"This glorification of terrorists is completely unacceptable. Will you stop it from happening? Will you let an event celebrating killings, rapes, executions, hostage taking and death to take place on public property in our city?"

"Hamas is applauding what is happening in Mississauga."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish on Nov. 13. Photo by Screengrab / City of Mississauga

The unthinkable, the celebration of the life of a major terrorist, the man who planned and saw to the execution of the 7 November 2023 mass invasion by thousands of Palestinian terrorists in groups led by Hamas is taking place in Canada. Where among other terrorist groups worldwide, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and likely some members of Fatah as well took part, groups listed on Canada's terrorist list. As such, they are criminally outlawed in Canada. Yet mosques in Canada, serving Muslim Canadians have held mourning services for Yahya Sinwar, master terrorist.

And now, a group called Canadian Defenders 4 Human Rights has organized a public event to take place near the end of the month, to honour Sinwar, the leader in Gaza of Hamas terrorism against Israel. A flyer advertising the event has been in circulation, and social media posts assure anyone in doubt that the Sinwar vigil is planned to continue on schedule. Jewish Canadian groups are aghast that the man responsible for the rapes and mutilations of hundreds of Jewish girls and women on that fateful October day, along with the death of 1,200 Israelis, is being honoured in Canada.

The flyer led off with the slogan "lest we forget our heroes", festooned with red poppies symbolic of military veterans' remembrance. Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish has been asked repeatedly to repeal permission for the memorial to a mass murderer of Jews to proceed. In response she took to posting on X her conclusion that the event is a hoax, despite the planners' insistence it is legitimate and it will proceed.

A video posted on social media by the group CD4HR featured a speech by its leader, FirasAl-Najim filmed outside a Royal Canadian Legion branch in Mississauga; he holds a printout of the flyer while speaking of Sinwar as a "great man", and defends the event. CD4HR  lauds "the great hero" and "Axis of resistance martyrs that sacrificed their honourable lives in support of the Palestinians & their struggle for liberation".

A poster advertising a Mississauga, Ont., vigil in honour of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Photo by @cd4_hr /X

 

"We respect the right to peacefully assemble  under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

"Peel Regional Police will work closely with the City of Mississauga, our community partners and other stakeholders, to ensure that the event remains peaceful."

Peel Regional Police

Palestinian Terrorists Feeling Entitled to Control the Outcome of their Savagery

"I want to remind the citizens of Israel that every time you eat something or drink something, remember us, the hostages, who don’t have the opportunity to enjoy food or water."

"My fear for my life is daily. The military efforts to release me that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is selling you is what will end up leading to my death."

"I can tell you I have become scared of the army. I am really afraid of the moment the army might get to me, or blow up the place I am located."

Alexander Troufanov

 

"[With winter approaching], these hostages, who have been subjected to horrific conditions of abuse, starvation and darkness for over a year, face an increasing risk of losing their lives."

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum 

"I am relieved to see my son alive, but I am very worried to hear what he is saying."

"I urge that every effort be made to secure his immediate release and that of all other hostages."

"They have no time left."  

Yelena Troufanov

Russian-Israeli captive Alexander “Sasha” Trufanov seen in an undated video released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Source: Screenshot/X.

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There were originally 254 Israeli infants, girls, women, men civilians, IDF soldiers, migrant farm workers captured by Palestinian terrorists who invaded southern Israel from Gaza with the specific purpose of looting, mass rape, mutilations and murder on a grand scale. These terrified people were taken hostage for the purpose of being used as 'trades' for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, found guilty of crimes of terror. The hostages have been deprived of liberty, daylight, hygiene, adequate food provisions and have experienced humiliation and torture, young women constantly raped. Many have died of privation, ill health and others have been murdered.

Those that are left, both dead and alive, are still viewed as prized caches of human trade. Palestinians know well the penchant of Israelis to try to move heaven and earth to secure the release of their people from the tender claws of their enemies. It is not enough for the Palestinians who in the greater majority  fully support their terrorist groups, and specifically Hamas that had governed Gaza in their exploits of murder, rape and abduction of innocent children, the elderly, vulnerable women and others to satisfy their own sense of implacable victimhood.

Those holding the Israeli hostages enjoy the psychological warfare they indulge in, a sadistic exercise in savagery outlawed by civilized people, but perpetrated by those whose seething hatred is unappeasable and do their utmost to cause suffering and anguish to the families, friends, colleagues of those helpless victims by staging scenarios where their prisoners read from scripts given them in an obvious ploy to manipulate those affected -- which to all effects, is every Israeli citizen -- to spur efforts to demand of their government the acceptance of Hamas's conditions for the release of the hostages.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and ordinary Palestinian civilians had taken part in the massacre of October 7, and the hostage-taking, released a video meant as proof that the hostage being featured is not yet dead. In the videos released by Hamas and PIJ, drawn and haggard victims plead with their families, with their government to use all means to secure their release. The terrorists hope that the end effect of these heartstring-pulling exercises in pain for Israel, it can turn the population against its government intent on destroying Palestinian terror groups.

This latest video featured Russian-Israeli hostage Alexander 'Sasha' Troufanov, abducted during the terrorist attack of 2023 from his family home, held captive for 404 days, in the Gaza Strip. This third video of Sasha Troufanov has him stating that he and the other captives remaining -- a hundred in number, but many no longer living -- and receiving inadequate food, much less basic hygiene products, pleading for the Israeli public to call for a hostage agreement. He expressed his fear of being accidentally killed by Israeli Defense Forces on cue; not very subtle, but quite effective.

The 29-year-old Troufanov was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz, as was his mother, Yelena Trouifanov; his grandmother Irena Tati, and his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen. His father, Vitaly Troufanov was murdered during the Nir Oz onslaught by Hamas as were 40 other residents of the Kibbutz. Since the abduction his mother and grandmother were freed in November of 2023, as requested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Sapir Cohen was released in a ceasefire agreement the same month.