The Israel Defense Forces released footage Thursday showing six Israeli hostages celebrating Hanukkah in a Gaza tunnel in December 2023, eight months before Hamas terrorists executed them. The video, recovered during military operations in Gaza, shows Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and Ori Danino marking the Jewish festival in captivity.
The footage shows the hostages reciting the candle-lighting blessing in Hebrew and singing Ma’oz Tzur, the traditional Hanukkah song. The candles were fashioned from paper cups. Hanukkah 5784 ran from December 7 through December 15, 2023.
“Make a wish, friends,” Yerushalmi can be heard saying in the clip. Another hostage urges the group: “We need to ask for good things. It’s always good to ask for good things, to ask for miracles.”
At one point, a hostage remarks that the shamash—the helper candle used to light the other candles—is “problematic” after its flame dims. Another hostage says it happened because of a lack of oxygen in the tunnel.
The video also features a speaker with an Arabic accent, apparently a Hamas guard, talking to the hostages.
IDF troops seized the footage three months ago during a raid on the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where Hamas terrorist leader Mohammed Sinwar had been staying before his elimination in mid-May. The Military Intelligence Directorate processed the material and shared it with the bereaved families six weeks ago.
“We will never forgive, and we will never forget how our hostages were treated by Hamas in Gaza,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon stated, sharing a clip from the video on X Thursday. “Despite the horrific torture and humiliation, our brave and courageous hostages never lost hope, and even continued to light Hanukkah candles to bring light into a world of darkness.”
According to intelligence assessments, the six hostages were held for most of their captivity in the same tunnel complex in Rafah where they were murdered in August 2024 as IDF soldiers closed in on their location. The IDF recovered their bodies on August 31, 2024. All six were kidnapped alive during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s Health Ministry confirmed the six had been shot multiple times at close range just days before their discovery, following autopsies of their remains. When soldiers found the bodies, they were in a narrow tunnel, surrounded by bottles filled with dark urine and a plastic bucket used as a toilet.
The extended footage, which includes hours of material, was broadcast in part by Channel 12’s investigative program “Uvda.” Hamas filmed the hostages for propaganda purposes, but unlike other clips the terror group released showing hostages reading statements dictated by their captors, this material shows the captives interacting naturally with one another.
In the Hanukkah footage, taken after 80 days of captivity, Goldberg-Polin references a historical photograph showing a chanukiah with a Nazi flag visible behind it. “There’s that picture of the Hanukkiah with a [Nazi flag] above it,” Goldberg-Polin is heard reflecting in one of the clips.
The hostages also joked about sufganiyot, the jelly donuts traditionally eaten during Hanukkah. “Where are the sufganiyot?” one of the hostages asks. “We’re waiting for Roladin in Israel,” Hersh responded, referring to the bakery known for elaborate donuts during the Hanukkah season.
Additional footage shows the hostages playing cards and backgammon while lying on thin mattresses in their tunnel cell. Goldberg-Polin, who lost the lower part of his left arm to a terrorist’s grenade during the October 7 attack at a field shelter near the Nova festival, perches what remains of his arm on a pillow.
In one segment, Lobanov opens a packaged cake and says “Advertising” as he eats it. In another clip from earlier in their captivity, he shaves Goldberg-Polin and Sarusi’s hair, remarking to them about a similar scene in the 2002 Holocaust film “The Pianist.”
When a Hamas captor entered the room, his face covered with a green Hamas bandanna, the hostages interacted with him when necessary. Gat is seen asking for medical care for Sarusi, who had unattended wounds.
Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli-American national, was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised in Israel from age 8 after making aliyah with his family in 2008.
The discovery of the six hostage bodies in August 2024 marked one of the darkest days of the war for the Israeli public. The six were Goldberg-Polin, 23; Yerushalmi, 24; Danino, 25; Lobanov, 32; Gat, 40; and Sarusi, 27. They were killed by their captors in the Rafah tunnel on August 29, 2024, and discovered by troops two days later.
Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabees, who led a revolt against the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire that ended in victory and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem around 2,200 years ago. The festival this year runs from December 14 through December 22.
The Sages teach that the central miracle of Hanukkah was the single cruse of pure oil that burned for eight days when it should have lasted only one. In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon writes: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts” (Proverbs 20:27).
The military has recovered unpublished footage of other hostages during the ground offensive in Gaza, some of which has been released to the public by their families. However, none has been as extensive as the material made public Thursday.
