JERUSALEM — Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, launched a video on Monday with footage of a person who recognized himself as Avera Mengistu, an Israeli civilian held captive by the Palestinian group since 2014, issuing a direct problem to Israel’s incoming navy chief of workers and its new hard-line authorities.
If verified as genuine, the footage would offer the primary public proof that Mr. Mengistu is alive after years of silence. The Israeli authorities had been analyzing the video on Monday and didn’t instantly verify its veracity.
Yallo Mengistu, a brother of the captive, advised the Israeli information website Ynet that whereas he couldn’t be 100% certain, the person within the video appeared like Avera Mengistu.
There was no indication when the footage was taken, however the navy wing of Hamas, which launched the video on its Telegram account and web site, accompanied the clip with textual content slides written in Arabic and Hebrew stating that the departing military chief, Aviv Kochavi, had “failed.” In addition they warned that his successor, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who was sworn in on Monday, “should put together himself to bear the burden of that failure and its penalties.”
“Your predecessor left you with loads of bother and lies,” one of many slides mentioned.
Showing wholesome, wearing a blue shirt and searching straight into the digital camera, the person who recognized himself as Mr. Mengistu within the video requested, in Hebrew, “How lengthy will my buddies and I stay in captivity right here after lengthy years of struggling and ache? The place are the state and the folks of Israel?”
Mr. Mengistu, an Israeli citizen of Ethiopian descent, walked into the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza in September 2014, about two weeks after a cease-fire went into impact, ending a devastating 50-day battle between Israel and Hamas. Mr. Mengistu, who was in his late 20s on the time, had walked alongside the seaside to Gaza, in response to safety digital camera footage on the time. His hometown, Ashkelon, is about 10 miles to the north.
After a 10-month information blackout on the case, the Israeli authorities finally confirmed that he was being held by Hamas together with one other Israeli citizen, later recognized as Hisham Al Sayed, from a Bedouin city in Israel’s southern Negev desert. Mr. Sayed had additionally crossed into Gaza independently. Final 12 months, Hamas launched a video clip of Mr. Sayed mendacity in a mattress and respiratory by an oxygen masks.
Mr. Mengistu’s family said that he had suffered from despair and was not drafted into the military at 18, like most Israeli Jews, however acquired an exemption after a medical committee discovered him unfit to serve.
Born in Ethiopia’s Gondar Province, Mr. Mengistu was airlifted to Israel together with his household in 1991, on the age of 5.
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
