Mark Lowen
BBC News, reporting from Jerusalem

Perhaps timed to add to the pressure Israel faces after the
International Court of Justice ruling, and ahead of ceasefire talks involving
the heads of the CIA and Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Hamas has
released a new video showing three female Israeli hostages.

Two are soldiers –
identified as Karina Ariev and Daniella Gilboa, both 19 – and the other is
thirty-year-old Doron Steinbrecher, who was abducted from her home in kibbutz
Kfar Azar.

“Reach an agreement and return all of
us”, says one. “You neglected us, you abandoned us. We want to come home now”,
they all state, though it’s unclear whether they’re being told what to say, and the BBC doesn’t broadcast material which may have been filmed under duress.

Such videos are yet another
traumatic reminder for Israelis of what they went through on 7 October – and
rub sault in the wounds of the relatives, increasingly angry with their
government for, in the eyes of many, not prioritising the hostages’ release.

And the fact that two of the women shown are soldiers is perhaps a conscious
decision by Hamas to show how complex any negotiations will be, as the release
of combatants would be a high price for Israel to pay.

Image source, .