The Hamas armed wing announced on Sunday that three Israeli hostages were killed, including a US citizen, during the Israel hostage freeing operation in Gaza on Saturday.
"In exchange for them [the four Israeli hostages], your own army killed three of your own captives in the same attack; one of them holds a US citizenship," the Hamas statement said.
The IDF operation that took place on Saturday rescued Israeli hostages Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir (21), Andrey Kozlov (27), and Shlomi Ziv (40), all of whom were kidnapped by Hamas to the Gaza Strip from the Supernova festival on October 7. According to Palestinian reports, the death toll during the operation reached over 200 Palestinians.
Hamas creates psychological warfare video
A video was created by the terrorist organization with text stating that "your Israeli government killed a number of your captives in order to save the other captives."
The video footage then continued to show images of wounded Palestinian children and elaborated that the IDF committed a massacre "in the Nuesirat Camp yesterday to rescue four captives."
"Your captives will not be released unless our prisoners are freed. Time is running out," the video concluded.
Previous psychological warfare from terror groups
This was not the first time Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza have waged psychological warfare against Israel. On October 9, Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida threatened in a recorded message that Hamas would murder civilian hostages for every Israeli attack from the air.
Additionally, Hamas published a video in May claiming that a soldier was killed and his body was kidnapped in Gaza, but the IDF has since debunked the terrorist group's claim.
While hostages have been murdered in the past, Hamas has preferred to say they were killed in Israeli air raids.
Notably, the spelling in Hebrew featured in the video contains multiple typos, and the identities of the alleged killed hostages have yet to be revealed.
This is a developing story.