Hamas claims Nadav Popplewell was killed hostage in an Israeli airstrike

World News

From Matthew Sedacca

On Saturday, Hamas demanded that a hostage kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists during their murderous attack on Israel on October 7 and shown in a recent hostage video had died.

Nadav Popplewell, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nirim in southern Israel, died after being injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the terror group said in a video released on Saturday.

News of Popplewell’s death came hours after Hamas released a separate, undated video showing the apparently beaten 51-year-old in a series of hostage propaganda films shared by the terror group.

In the clip, Popplewell was seen standing in front of a white wall with a large bruise on his right eye.

In the second video, Hamas said that last month an Israeli rocket hit the site where Popplewell, a British citizen, was being held along with a female hostage.

“He died because he did not receive intensive medical care in medical facilities due to the enemy’s destruction of hospitals in Gaza,” said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the second video. It has previously rejected some Hamas claims that hostages were killed in Israeli strikes.

Popplewell was kidnapped along with his mother, Channah Peri, in the community in southern Israel during the Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state that killed 1,200 people and took about 250 more hostage.

Popplewell’s brother was killed in the surprise attack.

Peri was among 24 hostages released on November 24 as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Rescuing the estimated 128 remaining hostages and driving Hamas out of Gaza are the focus of Israel’s ongoing military operations in Palestinian territory, including the ground offensive in the southernmost city of Rafah, which continued on Saturday despite criticism from the US and other allies.

On Saturday, Israeli forces extended evacuation orders to more parts of Rafah as they prepared to expand their military operation into the city’s densely populated central areas.

Also the IDF warned residents in the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and surrounding enclaves, that Hamas terrorists had regrouped there and ordered them to flee to western Gaza City.

According to the Israeli military, around 300,000 people have fled Rafah towards Al-Mawasi.

Rafah, which borders Egypt, served as a 25-square-mile refuge for over a million displaced Palestinians who sought refuge there during the seven-month bloody conflict.

The latest evacuation orders on Saturday followed seemingly stalled internationally brokered talks on a ceasefire for the release of hostages between Israel and Gaza.

On Friday, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya claimed the terror group was seeking peace, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to prolong the war.

“Hamas has neither suspended nor withdrawn from (ceasefire) negotiations; The crew opposed the mediators’ proposal,” Al-Hayya told Al Araby TV.

Hamas claimed the ceasefire talks would have to start from scratch after Israel rejected a proposal from international mediators.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration released a report late Friday saying Israel may have violated international humanitarian law in its military operations in Gaza by using U.S.-supplied weapons.

But the government stopped short of providing definitive conclusions in its harshest criticism of Israel yet, saying it could not verify specific cases in which the Jewish state may have used weapons in alleged violations.

In other developments:

• The United Nations, relying on Hamas’ health ministry and media office in Gaza, appears to have halved the number of Palestinian women and children allegedly killed in the ongoing war with Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
• The US vowed to reject any United Nations resolution aimed at granting Palestine full membership in an international body. The tough pledge came after a General Assembly resolution declaring that Palestine qualified for membership was passed with overwhelming support.

With post wires