Shocking videos recovered from Gaza show six Israeli hostages lighting Hanukkah candles in December 2024, all of whom were later murdered by Hamas terrorists.
Weak and emaciated hostages pray and sing as they light the festive candles, a video aired by Israeli TV channel Keshet 12 reveals. The footage originally recorded by Hamas for propaganda purposes showed hostages giving each other hope as they celebrated Hanukkah. Another video showed them marking New Year’s Eve 2024.
“The captives are seen lighting Hanukkah candles fashioned out of paper cups and singing the Hanukkah song ‘Ma’oz Tzur,'” The Times of Israel reported Friday. “The hostages were also filmed marking New Year’s Eve 2024 and eating a piece of fruit, as their captors attempted to show a different reality of captivity.
The footage, taken two months after they were taken hostage on October 7, 2023, features six hostages: American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin (23), Eden Yerushalmi (24), Ori Danino (25), Alex Lubanov (33), Almog Sarusi (27), and Carmel Gat (40).
Months later, Hamas terrorists would murder all six of them and dump their bodies in a tunnel in southern Gaza. Israeli troops recovered their remain in August 2025 during a ground offensive in the terrorist stronghold of Rafah.
“According to intelligence assessments, the six hostages were held for most of their captivity in the same Rafah tunnel complex where they were murdered at the end of August, as Hamas terrorists guarding them realized that IDF forces were nearing the site,” Israel’s Ynetnews reported. “The army believes the footage is from the hostages’ first and only Hanukkah in captivity, recorded in December two years earlier.”
In another video, fearful hostages are made to shave each other’s heads, making them resemble inmates of Nazi concentration camps.
The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday:
IDF footage of six Israeli hostages lighting Hanukkah candles in captivity months before they were murdered by Hamas was spread across Israeli media on Thursday.The footage, obtained by the IDF, shows the six hostages, coined the “Beautiful Six,” who were murdered by Hamas in Rafah and found by the IDF in August 2024 – Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi.Danino is seen lighting small candles balanced on cups while the group sings Shehecheyanu, the blessing said on reaching a special moment. After lighting the first night’s candles, the group sang several traditional songs.”Lighting Hanukkah candles in that dark place captures the essence of the Jewish spirit: light prevailing over darkness,” the families of the six said in a statement published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.”Hamas filmed these videos as propaganda, but the humanity of the beautiful six shines through this footage. It is stronger than any terrorist organization,” the statement continued. “These videos bear witness to evil and failure.””They were taken alive, they survived in captivity, and they should have come home alive.”Alongside the video of the Hanukkah candle lighting, the forum released nearly 20 other videos and photographs of the six.
Some of the clips that Hamas decided to dump show 39-year-old Carmel Gat describing her suffering during captivity. Carmel’s captors held flashlights to her face as she was made to record these videos inside a dark tunnel.
Hamas made these propaganda videos as part of its psychological warfare to sway the Israeli public during the Gaza war — but apparently shelved them, fearing they would backfire. Throughout the war, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups released videos of hostages pleading for their lives or calling for an end to the military operation. In one of these videos, hostage Evyatar David was made to dig his own grave with a shovel. (Evyatar, fortunately, survived the ordeal, returning home as part of the hostages-for-terrorists deal in October 2025, after 737 days of captivity.)
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