Israel woke up shaken after the release of an unprecedented video showing six Israeli hostages lighting Hanukkah candles during their captivity in Gaza, months before they were murdered by Hamas.
The footage, obtained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was quickly broadcast across all national media, generating shock and a deep sense of collective mourning.
The six hostages —Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi— are known in Israel as "The Beautiful Six", a nickname that reflects both the admiration and the tragedy surrounding their story.
Their bodies were found by the IDF in Rafah in August 2024, after ten months of intense searching.
In the main video, Ori Danino is seen lighting small candles placed on cups, while the group recites the Shehecheyanu blessing, the Jewish prayer that celebrates life even in extraordinary circumstances.
After lighting the candles for the first night, they sang several traditional songs, an intimate act that contrasts with the brutality of their abduction.
"Lighting Hanukkah candles in such a dark place captures the essence of the Jewish spirit: light prevailing over darkness", the families of the six hostages stated in a message released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
"Hamas filmed these videos as propaganda, but the humanity of the six shines brighter than any terrorist organization".
The forum also released nearly twenty additional videos and photographs. In them, the hostages are seen playing cards, cutting each other's hair, walking through Rafah tunnels, and even caring for one another, such as when Gat warns a Hamas terrorist that Sarusi needs professional medical attention.
In their message to the country, the families called on people to remember the hostages when lighting Hanukkah candles: "Let us remember our loved ones and all the families of soldiers, the wounded, the kidnapped, the murdered, and the fallen who will never light candles together again. Families who have been waiting nearly 800 days for answers".
Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, expressed the nation's outrage after the publication of the material: "We will never forgive and we will never forget how Hamas treated our hostages in Gaza".
The new images not only reveal the harshness of captivity, but also the extraordinary human strength of those who, even in the darkest moments, found a way to ignite a ray of light.
