Video shows hostages lighting candles for Chanukah in Gaza tunnel months before murders

The Israel Defense Forces recently recovered video footage showing six hostages, who were later murdered in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, lighting candles for Chanukah during the winter of 2023, Ynet reported on Thursday.

The video, found by IDF troops during military operations in Gaza, shows Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Ori Danino marking the Jewish festival of light some eight months before their execution by Palestinian terrorists.

Chanukah 5784 was marked from Dec. 7 through Dec. 15, 2023.

The festival, which this year starts on Dec. 14 and lasts through Dec. 22, 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 footage in the Gaza Strip shows the six men and women reciting the candle-lighting blessing in Hebrew and singing the traditional holiday song “Ma’oz Tzur” (“Rock of Ages”).

Yerushalmi can be heard saying, “Make a wish, friends,” while another hostage urges fellow captives: “We need to ask for good things. It’s always good to ask for good things, to ask for miracles.”

One of the hostages remarks that the shamash (a “helper,” referring to a candle used to light the other candles) is “problematic” after its flame dims. Another hostage says it happened because of a lack of oxygen.

The video footage released by the IDF also features a speaker with an Arabic accent—apparently, a Palestinian guard—talking to the hostages.

‘Light into a world of darkness’

“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 on Thursday.

“Despite the horrific torture and humiliation, our brave and courageous hostages never lost hope, and even continued to light Chanukah candles to bring light into a world of darkness,” he added.

The footage was seized about three months ago during an IDF raid on the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where Hamas terrorist leader Mohammed Sinwar had also been staying before he was eliminated in mid-May.

The material was shared with the bereaved families some six weeks ago after processing and production by the Military Intelligence Directorate.

According to intelligence assessments, the six hostages were held for most of their captivity in the same tunnel complex in Rafah—in the southernmost part of the Strip—where they were murdered in August 2024 as IDF soldiers closed in on their location.

The IDF recovered the bodies on Aug. 31 of that year. All six were kidnapped alive during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

They had been shot multiple times by their Hamas captors at close range just days before their discovery, Israel’s Health Ministry confirmed last year, following autopsies of their remains.

Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli-American national, was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised in the Jewish state from the age of 8 after making aliyah (“immigration to Israel”) with his family in 2008.

The discovery of the six hostage bodies shocked the Israeli public to the core and marked one of the darkest days of an already traumatic period.