(8 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mevasseret Zion, Israel – 7 May 2025
1. Setup shot of Ruhama Bohbot, mother of hostage Elkana Bohbot, holding her son’s picture
2. Close of poster showing picture of hostage Elkana Bohbot
3. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Ruhama Bohbot, mother of hostage Elkana Bohbot:
++STARTS ON SHOT 1 AND IS OVERLAID BY SHOT 2 & PARTIALLY BY SHOT 4++
"It’s true that I received three videos and not easy videos at all, but that doesn’t mean anything because we’re dealing with uneasy people here. So there could be a change every hour and the anxieties are only increasing and increasing."
4. Various of phone showing pictures of hostage Elkana Bohbot
5. Mid of Bohbot
6. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Ruhama Bohbot, mother of hostage Elkana Bohbot:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS IN SHOT 4++
"I know that the hostages are at high risk. If it’s in terms of food, they probably are not receiving, because there’s no humanitarian aid. And I don’t know if they’re being abused because there are no decisions here in my country. I don’t know what’s going on there. No one visits them and can come and tell us listen, they’re in this or that situation. But I just want to imagine that he’s holding on and that he’s okay for now. That’s my hope and that’s my belief right now."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Ruhama Bohbot was watching the news from her home outside of Jerusalem when she heard U.S. President Donald Trump announce something new: three of the 24 hostages Israel considered to be alive in Gaza had probably died.
“As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said during a ceremony in the White House for the swearing in of his Middle East special envoy.
“There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies,” Trump said.
Bohbot froze. She was terrified, then furious.
Her son, 36-year-old Elkana Bohbot, was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival, and has been held in captivity almost 600 days.
No one from Israel had reached out to her to update her on the news that Israel had updated the number of living hostages from 24 to 21.
Immediately she thought back to an incident last week, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had mentioned the 24 hostages, and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, jumped in and said “fewer.”
Netanyahu’s office dismissed the moment as a slip of the tongue.
“No government official has come to tell us, yes, this is correct,” said Bohbot.
“So we’re just continuing to live in hope that everything will be ok in the meantime, even amidst all of the things that are not okay. Because it’s impossible to know,” she added.
Israel insists that figure of hostages believed to be alive stands at 24, although an Israeli official said there was “serious concern” for the lives of three captives.
The official said there has been no sign of life from those three, whom the official did not identify.
He said that until there is evidence proving otherwise, the three are considered to be alive.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details related to the war, said the families of the captives were updated on those developments.
Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 during their cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. The officials do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count.
AP Video shot by Alon Bernstein
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