Against the backdrop of the uproar over the video released by Hamas, in which the Israeli captive Avra Mengisto is allegedly seen, Hamas spokesman Hazem Kazem said this morning (Tuesday) that “the occupation will not accept its soldiers captured by the military wing of Hamas except through a respectable prisoner of war deal. The tape released last night confirms the seriousness of the wing The military is handling the prisoner case and the subject of the POW deal.” In addition, Kazem also said on Radio al-Shams that the video published by the organization, in which a person who was presented as Abra Mengistu is seen, was filmed in recent weeks and that the documentation of Mengistu being held captive in Gaza is authentic.
“Where is the state?”: Hamas released new documentation of Avra Mengistu in captivity
A Maariv commentator: “Until recently it was not clear whether Avra Mengistu was alive”
Yalo Mengisto, the brother of Avra Mengisto, commented in a conversation with Eral Segal and Ethan Wertheimer on radio 103FM about the authenticity of the video, and announced: “I can tell you 99% – it’s Avra.”
He explained: “I can sarcastically say, ‘Thank you very much to Hamas for giving us a sign of life.’ foreign. “He’s off, and even without knowing it I know they’re giving him pills, because he’s fat, because it’s not his genes, you see it’s a different person. He looks worse. He seems detached to me, and also that he’s fat, that he’s gained weight, it’s not natural” .
He responded to comments questioning the credibility of the video, saying: “For some reason, the voice is not him, you see, the voice does not match a human being. He is from first grade in Israel, so he speaks Hebrew, has an accent, the voice is not him. They asked me, I said that you can’t get confused in the mirror, it takes you a few seconds, and it’s scary as soon as I saw the picture, but then I know it. The state claimed he was not alive, but we always knew he was alive, that’s the belief, that’s how we worked, that’s how they acted. It’s absurd but In double quotation marks, I can sarcastically say thank you to Hamas, for really giving us another life.”
IDF spokesman Ran Kochav commented today on Radio 103 about the reliability of the video of the Israeli abductee and said that contrary to reports after the distribution of the video, the estimates are increasing that the video is reliable, but there is still no clear identification, and that despite the great desire of his family, they are still having difficulty identifying him.
As a reminder, the Az ad-Din al-Qassem Brigades, the military arm of the terrorist organization Hamas, published yesterday a new document of Abra Mengisto, the Israeli citizen who crossed the border into the Gaza Strip in 2014. In the video, Mengisto is heard saying: “I am the prisoner Abra Mengisto, until when Am I here? My friends and I are in captivity after the long years. Where is the state and the people of Israel our destiny.” In the meantime, Avra’s brother was interviewed by News 12, saying that “exciting and scary at the same time, there is a resemblance, but I’m not sure it’s him.” Many questions arose following the publication of the video by the terrorist organization, among them the questions “Does Avra Mengistu appear in the video?”, and “What is the date the video was taken?”.