Qassam Brigades to a former Israeli prisoner: You will return to the army that tried to kill you and from which we protected you!

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, released a video on Tuesday in which it addressed a former Israeli prisoner in the Gaza Strip who was released in the recent prisoner exchange deal.

The Qassam Brigades showed the prisoner (whose name was not mentioned) standing on a platform with the logo of the Friends of the Israeli Army organization, headquartered in New York City, behind him.

He delivered a speech in which he said: “Next month I will return to Israel… I’ll return to wear the Israeli army uniform and serve with my brothers there”.

In response, the Qassam Brigades asked the former prisoner in both Arabic and Hebrew: “You will return to the army that tried to kill you so many times, and we are the ones who protected you… Do you remember?!”

The Qassam Brigades followed this question with footage of Qassam Brigades fighters pulling the Israeli soldier from the rubble of a destroyed tunnel, indicating that he had been targeted by the Israeli army.

Footage also emerged of the Israeli soldier receiving medical care from members of the Qassam Brigades who were holding him.

On more than one occasion, the Qassam Brigades accused the Israeli army and its government of killing its prisoners by directly bombing their detention centers or their surroundings.

Later, the Qassam Brigades published other footage showing the soldier, when his name was included on the list of those to be released, on a beach in the Gaza Strip, looking well-dressed and happy.

“I am very happy today… I’ll leave here,” the soldier said in the Arabic video before his release.

The Qassam Brigades also published footage of the Israeli prisoner being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which in turn handed him over to the army.

On January 19, a prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect.

Israel resumed its war in the Gaza Strip on March 18, launching violent airstrikes on various areas of the besieged enclave.

During that period, Hamas released Israeli prisoners who appeared to be in good health at the time, in exchange for Israel’s release of Palestinian detainees who showed signs of torture and starvation after being subjected to abuse in its prisons.

In the video, The Qassam reiterated its assertion that the exchange deal means “freedom and life” for its prisoners, while continued military pressure means “death and failure”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al Ansari announced that mediators would meet with Hamas’s negotiating delegation in Doha to discuss Trump’s plan to end the war on Gaza.

On Monday, at a press conference with Netanyahu, Trump outlined the key elements of his 20-point plan to end the war, including the release of Israeli prisoners within 72 hours, the disarmament of Hamas, and a ceasefire.

The plan’s announcement comes as the Israeli military continues its deployment in several key areas of Gaza City, while continuing to bomb and shell buildings and residential facilities in those areas as part of its efforts to occupy the city and displace Palestinians from it.

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced on Tuesday that a number of soldiers were killed and wounded in a raid on an Israeli army gathering south of Gaza City.

The Qassam Brigades said in a post on Telegram that its fighters “managed to raid a gathering of enemy soldiers and vehicles inside the Rosary Sisters School in the Tel al Hawa neighborhood” south of Gaza City, yesterday, Monday.

It stated that its fighters-initiated shooting at point-blank range at enemy soldiers, killing and wounding them.

The Qassam Brigades added that its fighters also threw a number of vacuum bombs into two armored personnel carriers at the same location, killing and wounding their crews, and were able to blow up a Merkava tank with a suicide bomb.

The Qassam Brigades noted that she had observed an Israeli army helicopter landing to evacuate the dead and wounded.

In a related context, the Qassam Brigades said that they succeeded in detonating a Merkava tank with a highly explosive landmine last Sunday, while it was stationed near Street 10 in the Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.