On Tuesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Matan Eshet, the cousin of Hamas hostage Evyatar David, said that Hamas has been given power “by seeing that the world believes their propaganda, saying there is not enough humanitarian aid getting into the Gaza Strip, while neglecting the effect of” Hamas taking the aid.
Co-host Geoff Bennett asked, “By releasing that propaganda video of starving hostages, Hamas is clearly trying to capitalize on the international furor over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel is accused of restricting aid. Hamas is accused of hoarding and diverting that aid that gets through. How do those competing narratives complicate the effort to secure the release of the hostages?”
Eshet answered, “I think it gives Hamas power by seeing that the world believes their propaganda, saying there is not enough humanitarian aid getting into the Gaza Strip, while neglecting the effect of Hamas of taking the humanitarian aid, of not giving it to the people, taking it to their own terrorist people, and to make sure that they have more profit. So, they take the humanitarian aid and they take it to their own tunnels or sell it again on the street [at] extremely high prices, and then they just cause the people to starve again.”
Earlier, Eshet stated that “we are really hopeful that, after this horrible video, it will push the world leaders to put pressure on Hamas to make sure that they agree to a full deal that will return all of the hostages.”
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