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Tag: Hamas terrorists

  • ‘I screamed in pain’: Former hostage Matan Angrest says Hamas terrorists electrocuted him – N12

    Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest told Channel 12’s ‘Uvda’ about his captivity, including Hamas torture, the loss of his tank crew, bonding with fellow hostage Gali Berman, and his eventual release.

    Content warning: This article contains disturbing imagery, including torture and abuse.

    Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest told Channel 12’s ‘Uvda’ that he was tortured, including by electrocution, during his time in Hamas’s terror captivity, in an interview broadcast on Thursday evening.

    Angrest, who was serving in a specialized tank unit with classified equipment under the 7th Armored Brigade near Nahal Oz during the October 7 massacre, was the only member of his tank crew who survived the terror attack. His crewmates, Capt. Daniel Perez, St.-Sgt. Itay Chen, and Sgt. Tomer Leibovitz, were all murdered, with their remains taken by terrorists into the Gaza Strip.

    Things that fall under ‘die and don’t tell’ during torture, interrogations

    “I woke up in Gaza in some house, and could not open my eyes or move my hand – my hand was burned,” Angrest said, describing the first moments he recalls following the massacre.

    “I opened my eyes, and eight people were sitting in front of me. They started asking things like ‘Where were you kidnapped from? Where do you serve [in the IDF]?’ but they talked to me in Arabic, and I could not understand,” he continued.

    “Someone came to me with two wires and put them on my wounds. I felt like I was being electrocuted. I screamed in pain, and then he did it to me again,” he told the interviewer.

    According to the report, the terrorists already knew that Angrest was part of a tank crew containing classified systems equipment, and knew that he, as the only survivor, would be able to tell them information that could help future terror acts succeed.

    “In the really hard interrogations, they kept asking things that were classified. Things like ‘Can the driver kill? Does he have a weapon?’ and I kept telling them that the driver is like a regular driver,” he said.

    Angrest’s ability to move improved over time, but Hamas terrorists kept increasing the pressure. “They tortured me to the extreme. Electric shocks – trauma that will stay with me. The longest interrogation was about eight hours continuously, where they made me tell things in the ‘die and don’t tell’ category,” he recalled.

    Angrest also noted that he found out via terrorist radio chatter that his three tank crewmates were murdered on October 7. “I locked myself in a room alone [after finding out], you understand that it’s over. I just thought about them and all of our experiences.”

    Angrest recounts meeting Gali Berman, no longer being alone

    Angrest was held alone for weeks, in locations both above ground and within the underground terror tunnels, Channel 12 noted.

    Then, he was joined by fellow hostage Gali Berman. “I was with Gali for a long time, and connected with him a lot,” he recalled.

    But he was separated from the other hostages and continued to be interrogated. “I would say to Gali: ‘I’m scared. I don’t know what they’ll do to me. How will I sleep at night?’”

    “He tried to comfort me, [but I knew that] if they find out more things about me, it’ll be the end for me,” Angrest added.

    Angrest recalls Oct. 7 massacre

    During the interview, Angrest recalled how, during the massacre, he jumped into his tank and saw a white Toyota with a green-white license plate. “I rubbed my eyes. How did it get in? Suddenly, we heard gunshots, and asked ourselves, ‘Did they infiltrate into the country?’”

    Perez commanded his tank to mobilize out of the Nahal Oz outpost, running over terrorists moving towards it, moving towards a firing position overlooking Shejaia. “Not long after, we were told over the radio to return to the outpost, as there was an incident. I passed by the place where I sleep – where I played backgammon with Tomer (Leibovitz) the day before,” he recalled.

    He noted coming across the scene of the fight between terrorists and Golani Brigade company commander, Maj. Shilo Har-Even and his five soldiers, who were all massacred at the outpost. Perez told the tank crew to “shut off their emotions,” Angrest said.

    “‘Our goal is that there will be no kidnapping,’ I don’t know how he said that – how he predicted the future,” Angrest added, citing what Perez said to the crew at the time.

    “Matan, you need to be sharp. They’ll try to take whoever is in the operations room and kidnap them,” Perez warned, according to Angrest.

    Angrest then noted how just after 8:30 a.m., the tank returned to the breached border fence and discovered another wave of terrorist infiltrators.

    “I told Perez, ‘Look, they’re entering the country, they’re coming towards us,” he told the interviewer.

    They were faced with a dilemma of whether to risk the tank to the possibility of anti-tank missile fire by closing in, or attempting, and likely failing, to stop the wave of infiltrators with long-distance fire, he noted.

    Angrest, the tank’s driver, was instructed by Perez to “reverse quickly” and towards the terrorists.

    “As a team, we began to understand, it’s either them or us. After the shell Itay [Chen] fired, I could see terrorists flying into the air from the blast, 50 meters away from me. While I was seeing this, I continued driving, thinking, ‘How do I destroy them all? it’s… an insane amount. I knew that things could end for us at any moment,” he recounted.

    Angrest still struggles to recall everything that happened, but black box recordings fill in some gaps, Channel 12 noted. The last few moments of the recordings included someone crying, “Did someone get hit? Perez! Perez! Perez!”

    Angrest recalls finding out he was being released

    Angrest was released from captivity in October of 2025, after 738 days of being held by Hamas terrorists within the Gaza Strip.

    It came as a surprise, he said. “They took Gili [Berman] and me somewhere while blindfolded. They removed them, and suddenly we saw [fellow hostages] Alon Ohel and Guy Gilboa-Dalal.”

    “One of the senior terrorists pointed at us and said, ‘You four – you leave tomorrow. Life changed [after being released]. You wake up in the morning and look for the next step. For everyone, it seems like the struggle is over, and you go back to living normally. It goes from zero to one hundred in some ways, but in others from one hundred to zero. The scars will always remain,” he said.

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  • Hamas says return of Israeli hostages’ bodies may take time

    Hamas claims the return of Israeli hostages’ bodies will take time, saying some are buried in destroyed tunnels and others under bombed buildings.

    Hamas claimed on Thursday that the return of Israeli hostages’ bodies may take time, as some were buried in tunnels destroyed by Israel, and others remain under the rubble of buildings that Israel bombed and destroyed, adding that the group remained committed to the Gaza agreement and keen to hand over all the remaining bodies of the hostages held in Gaza.

    The retrieval of the remaining bodies required equipment to remove rubble, which was currently unavailable due to Israel’s ban on entry of such tools, Hamas added.

    Israel will continue refusing to allow a Turkish delegation of 81 rescue personnel and heavy equipment to enter the Gaza Strip until Hamas returns all the remains of deceased hostages that it can, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

    Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians congregate in Jabalya, northern Gaza Strip. January 30, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM)

    ‘Group of hostages’ bodies that Hamas can return right now’

    “There is a group of hostages’ bodies that Hamas can return right now [and] another group they know the location of, but they need equipment and assistance to retrieve them,” another source said. “And there are some bodies they genuinely do not know where they are.”

    Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Thursday: “We know for certain that Hamas can easily release a significant number of hostages in accordance with the agreement. What they are doing now is a fundamental violation of that agreement.”

    Amichai Stein contributed to this article.

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  • ‘First round of hostage deal negotiations in Cairo was positive,’ sources tell Al-Jazeera

    According to Al-Jazeera, the first round of negotiations between the mediators and the Hamas terrorist organization delegation in Sharm el-Sheikh has ended.

    The first round of negotiations between the Hamas terrorist organization and mediators over the hostage deal was “characterized by positivity,” according to sources cited by the Qatari news network Al-Jazeera.

    During this first phase, the roadmap for the current round of talks in Sharm el-Sheikh and its mechanisms was also determined.

    In addition, these sources noted that the Hamas delegation made it clear to the mediators that the continued attacks in the Gaza Strip pose a challenge to the release of the hostages.

    The report also claimed that the Hamas delegation included two members who survived the assassination attempt in Qatar: Khalil al-Hayya and Zaher Jabareen.

    Hamas calls October 7 a ‘glorious day’

    While this first negotiation round was underway, Hamas shared a statement celebrating the two-year anniversary of the October 7 Massacre by calling it a “glorious day.”

    Houses in kibbutz Nir Oz, where residents where takedn hostage and later on murdered by Hamas terrorists in the October 7 massacre, southern Israel. September 30, 2025. (credit: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

    It also included a video, made mostly from artifical intelligence footage, that celebrates the attacks and calls the terrorists who pillage Israeli kibutzim “heroes,” with them being described as going in “defense of their religion and homeland.”

    It also names the terrorist leaders killed by Israel in the last two years of war, while using Artificial Intelligence to recreate Yahya Sinwar’s death footage in Gaza.

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  • The IDF’s invasion of Gaza unlikely to achieve war goals, return hostages

    Without honing in on the hostages and on Hamas’s hidden fighters in Gaza City, the IDF controlling more land is unlikely to achieve strategic goals.

    There is a built-in dilemma that seems to be hampering the current Gaza City invasion, just as it circumscribed the impact of prior invasions.

    In March, Israel hoped that a new strategy of conquering territory in Gaza would cause stress to Hamas more than “only” having beaten its 24 battalions with the penetrate-and-withdraw strategy it had used during the war up to that point.

    Also, Israel hoped more of Hamas’s top leaders who weren’t yet dead – not many are left – would want to live more than their predecessors, which is what happened with Hezbollah.

    It has not worked out that way, and the same problems Israel has encountered since March are likely to plague the latest Gaza City invasion, which started last week.

    It turned out that even once Israel started to take over much of Gaza’s territory – which emasculated Hamas in many ways to the extent it wanted to present itself as ruling the Strip – Hamas’s leaders knew that as long as Israel wouldn’t endanger the 20 living hostages, they retained their leverage.

    IDF soldiers operate in Gaza City, September 17, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

    What does Hamas face in the Gaza offensive?

    In other words, losing territory did hurt their political control over Gazans to some extent, but it was not decisive. Only holding the hostages was decisive. So, Hamas could stick to its same demands regarding terms for ending the war regardless of its loss of territory.

    Meanwhile, its few remaining leaders, and any new younger leaders who used to be middle management, still don’t seem to care about dying as long as “the cause” lives on and they keep the hostages.

    If Israel hoped that the harrowing picture of blowing up a few enormous Gaza City buildings would bring Hamas to its senses and recognize that this is a fight it cannot win, weeks have gone by since that started with no change in Hamas’s position.

    If Hamas was not ready to give up its hostages’ leverage to avoid losing three buildings or six buildings, why would it give up that leverage for dozens of buildings?

    Hamas also is extremely stressed by the Gazan civilian population being forced out of Gaza City.

    It worries about having to work harder to keep the population in line and being blamed for this latest loss of one of the few remaining parts of prewar Gaza that is still standing.

    But Hamas has managed it over and over again.

    At the end of the day, to keep control in the Strip, it does not need to keep the Gazan population happy; it just needs to keep enough guns to keep them too scared to rise up to topple it.

    It helps that about 700,000 of the two million Gazans are very ideologically associated with Hamas, even if only a fraction of those participate in fighting.

    There could be another stress point from the Gaza City invasion.

    The IDF could finally locate the remaining 2,000-2,500 hard-core Hamas fighters and maybe some of the other larger group of less-committed Hamas terrorists and kill or arrest them.

    But this is unlikely to happen, because the IDF is not checking Gazans as they flee Gaza City.

    With about 500,000 Gazans having left over the past couple weeks, most of the Hamas fighters have likely already fled.

    On a daily basis, the IDF provides detailed updates in Gaza City.

    But if from late 2023 until summer 2024 such updates could talk about killing hundreds or dozens of Hamas terrorists in a day, for all of 2025, the IDF messages often talk about killing a few terrorists at a time or seizing weapons caches without even killing terrorists.

    That is not really going to further decimate or defeat Hamas’s remaining forces, who decided more than a year ago to bide their time by hiding and only venturing out when it was safe – when the IDF forces are taking a break – to carry out guerrilla-style warfare.

    For some time, it has seemed to be clear that the hostages could be freed with a deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting the return of 10 hostages for a 60-day pause in the war last month. Or the IDF could send in special forces to all known hostage locations simultaneously and hope for some lucky rescues, but be prepared for the worst.

    Those seem to be the two ways to end the hostage standoff. If Israel is not willing to choose one of those two choices, Hamas will retain its hostages’ leverage.

    In terms of defeating Hamas, Israel can either painstakingly vet and process the entire civilian population in an effort to sniff out the remaining Hamas terrorists, or it can end the war but keep enough soldiers regularly raiding Gaza for a period of years to try to eliminate Hamas’s military support over time.

    Neither is guaranteed to work, and both are extremely difficult to implement.

    In the absence of such strategies, Israel is unlikely to achieve its strategic objectives just by taking over Gaza City.

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  • IDF Oct. 7 probe uncovers defense flaws, heroic victories in Yiftah Camp, Erez against Hamas

    The IDF’s probe into the events of October 7, 2023, highlighted both key triumphs and failures in the battles near Yiftah Camp, Erez regional command post, and Zikim, preventing Hamas infiltration.

    The IDF found that the quick arrival and determined, courageous fighting on October 7, 2023, of soldiers from the 77th Battalion of the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade in the border patrol area near Zikim prevented Hamas terrorist infiltrators from capturing the nearby Yiftah Camp, the military probe published on Tuesday revealed.

    The probe also noted that the arrival of additional combat personnel and senior commanders to the area helped prevent further infiltration north of the Gaza Strip.

    Nine IDF soldiers fell in combat in the terror attack on Yiftah Camp.

    The 77th Battalion was deployed in the area from 5:30 a.m. Hamas terrorists launched a full-scale attack at 6:29 a.m., including rocket launches and infiltrations via paragliders, vehicles, and on foot.

    The sector to the north of the Gaza Strip, where Yiftah Camp is located, came under a well-organized attack in which the battalion was heavily outnumbered.

    An Israeli tank manoeuvres on the Israeli side of the border between Israel and Gaza; illustrative. (credit: REUTERS)

    Key conclusions and lessons from the investigation into the battle of Yiftah Camp

    The IDF found that the Hamas terrorists, despite preparing for years to capture Yiftah Camp during an infiltration, ultimately failed to do so. This was attributed to the IDF personnel in the sector being able to thwart their terror plans.

    This included the quick arrival of standby soldiers who, along with others, were able to stop the terrorists from infiltrating deeper and to prevent greater damage, the investigation found.

    While terrorists successfully infiltrated Yiftah Camp, they quickly decided to retreat into the Gaza Strip on a stolen military vehicle, the probe said.

    The investigation noted that while combat procedures in Yiftah Camp were conducted properly, the IDF needs to reevaluate the camp’s defense infrastructure and protocols, including positioning a permanent combat force near the battalion commander’s headquarters, which would allow for a better and more effective defense.

    The probe also found that assigning a non-combat soldier as a guard at the border patrol post compromised the army’s initial response ability.

    Several IDF Combat Engineering Vehicle Operators were taking cover during the attack, the probe noted, adding that their absence during the fighting in the border patrol area compromised the army’s defensive abilities against an attack of such magnitude, failing to meet the IDF’s standards for a professional and ethical soldier.

    The return of the battalion’s ambulances to the camp at the start of the attack compromised medical flexibility, the probe said.

    Furthermore, the ambulance’s failure to return to the camp after making the correct decision to evacuate a soldier to the hospital affected the medical response within the camp during and after the evacuation.

    During the ambulance’s absence, a civilian played a key role in evacuating wounded and fallen soldiers, receiving praise from the military’s investigation.

    Soldiers were prompt in arriving at the area, operating tanks, and deploying to fight. This included the mobilization of soldiers from the Paratroopers Brigade, Oketz canine soldiers, and Maglan commandos, who aided in restoring operational control, preventing further terror infiltration, and stopping the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.

    While the attack was ongoing, soldiers at the battalion headquarters acted admirably under fire, the probe noted. Their activities amid the attack included observers continuing their task of directing forces efficiently and professionally toward fleeing terrorists; the situation room functioning in managing the sector; and soldiers from the situation room assisting in treating and evacuating casualties.

    IDF investigation into battle at Erez regional command post

    The military also released the results of the battle at the Erez regional command post and the Zikim firing range. The investigation found that the reconnaissance unit, tank crew, squad commander, and additional soldiers played a decisive role in disrupting the original plan of the terrorists, delaying them from infiltrating deeper and preventing further damage.

    During these battles, four soldiers were murdered and 15 terrorists were killed. Two of the terrorists were killed while infiltrating the regional command post, three were killed as they embarked from a boat, and 10 were killed while fighting in the Zikim firing range area.

    Key conclusions and lessons from the investigation into the battle of Erez regional command post, Zikim firing range

    The investigation noted that the reconnaissance unit’s “swift actions” and decision to quickly reach the barrier, which prevented terrorists from tunneling under the border fence, and firing at terrorists trying to breach it, were a key part in stopping the attack from this route, and significantly impacted the terrorists’ plans.

    The mobilization of the reconnaissance unit toward Zikim Beach following reports of the infiltration by sea, as well as determined fighting at Zikim firing range, caused several terrorist casualties, thereby delaying them and significantly affecting the outcome of battles, the investigation noted.

    The tank crew’s rapid positioning and firing of shells at the terrorists, without orders, halted the attack along the infiltration path and disrupted their plans, the probe found.

    The decision of St.-Sgt. Ofir Zioni to accompany another soldier to fight at Zikim Beach and engage with terrorists significantly helped establish the situational picture in the area and prepare the base for the terrorists’ infiltration attempts. Zioni was ultimately killed in combat during the fighting.

    The presence of the deputy platoon commander at the 5:30 a.m. patrol impacted response time and force readiness, as the command headquarters was understaffed and lacked a scout at the base.

    The platoon’s forces were concentrated in two areas, with the probe noting that distributing soldiers to other areas would have assisted in quicker response times and an improved defense capability.

    The investigation found that there was no understanding among soldiers that a rocket and mortar barrage, as seen on October 7, was an indicator of an impending raid; therefore, no appropriate preparatory actions were taken, such as reinforcing positions to prevent infiltration.

    Soldiers at the Erez regional command post and in other parts of the sector entering a protected area during the rocket and mortar barrages negatively impacted the response time to raids, as well as any observational response, the military found.

    Observation posts must be protected from incoming fire, including platoon headquarters, to allow soldiers to remain in a secure location while defending their positions without risking exposure, the investigation recommended.

    The investigation also noted that the placing of a reserve platoon at the Erez border crossing meant that the 77th Battalion did not have a ready reserve force and was, therefore, limited in its ability to influence the battle.

    The investigation also praised several soldiers for their actions, who followed correct operational behavior.

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  • As Netanyahu decides between war and a deal, IDF prepares for Gaza City invasion

    It is still far from clear when and if Netanyahu will finally give the order to move the operation forward on a large scale.

    It seems as if for weeks now, the world has been waiting for an imminent hostage exchange and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas or an imminent invasion by the IDF of Gaza City (after multiple prior invasions).

    But neither has happened.

    So what is happening?

    First of all, the IDF has been attacking and clearing Hamas and Palestinian civilians from portions of northern Gaza bordering on Gaza City, such as Zeitun.

    The military first attacked and cleared Zeitun of Hamas terrorists in the fall of 2023 and has returned there multiple times since.

    What is different in Israel’s next Gaza takeover?

    What would be different this time – if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eventually greenlights the invasion plans as leaked to the media – would be Israel taking control over Gaza City itself to try to hold it.

    People are seen outside the area of Al-Ahli hospital where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in a blast that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other, and where Palestinians who fled their homes were sheltering amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, in Gaza City, October 18, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMED AL-MASRI)

    The air force has also increased strikes against Hamas in recent weeks, whether in the Gaza City area or other areas.

    The IDF has been in touch with hospitals and other central civilian authorities in Gaza to prepare and coordinate a mass evacuation of around a million Gazan civilians from the area.

    According to Hamas’s Health Ministry, dozens of Gazans were killed over the weekend, though as usual the ministry does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and innocent civilians.

    Still, recent percentages for the IDF have been likely the worst since the start of the war in the ratio of civilians to terrorists harmed.

    For much of the war, various military officials said off-record that a rate of 60% civilians harmed to 40% terrorists harmed seemed broadly accurate and would have put Israel in a good place compared to other countries that had to fight terrorists in urban areas with the systematic use of human shields.

    But this was at the stage when the IDF was sometimes killing thousands of Hamas terrorists per month or even per week.

    In contrast, in the last half year, the army has said it had killed just over 2,000 Hamas terrorists. This during a time in which the Hamas Health Ministry has alleged that there have been around 11,000 Gazans killed, which would be about an 85% to 15% civilian-to-terrorist ratio.

    On the flip side, Israel is hard at work setting up new tent areas and makeshift medical intake areas to handle the planned mass movement of Palestinian civilians out of Gaza City.

    The IDF has shown numerous examples of Hamas exaggerating or downright inventing non-existent mass civilian casualty incidents, but it has not tossed Hamas’s estimates completely out the window and has declined to provide its own estimated civilian casualty tally – something which it always did in prior conflicts in Gaza.

    Concurrently, tens of thousands of reservists have either already been called up for a new round of duty or will be in the first week of September.

    In this way, Israel so far has been punished globally for daring to move and potentially endanger a large number of Palestinian civilians again, punished domestically for calling up large numbers of reserves as the war wages on into the end of the second year, and receiving none of the concrete benefits of actually eliminating Hamas forces in any large number.

    Netanyahu did pocket a potentially significant benefit over a week ago when Hamas finally agreed to another temporary ceasefire for another partial hostage deal, something it had held off from agreeing to for months, until the Gaza City invasion began to look more real.

    But the prime minister – at press time – had not even seriously discussed accepting the deal, which he desperately wanted in July, such that there has been no bankable achievement to date.

    Meanwhile, there is no ongoing battle between two opposing groups: those Israeli officials who want to rush the invasion of Gaza City to gain some of the benefits of killing more Hamas terrorists and putting more direct pressure on Hamas’s few remaining surviving leaders, and those who want to draw out the pre-invasion phase for weeks or months to reduce any possibility of risk to Israeli soldiers, Israeli hostages, or Palestinian civilians.

    It is still far from clear when, and if, Netanyahu will finally give the order to move the operation forward in a large-scale manner and what benefits will arise from it, compared to the costs.

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