The Israeli military has released a video showing the tunnel in the Gaza Strip where six Israeli hostages were held captive and killed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The shaft to the tunnel was buried in a child’s bedroom in a house in southern Gaza, army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in the video.
In the video he is seen standing in a bombed-out room, while the colorful Disney characters can still be seen on the walls.
The shaft leads into a low, narrow tunnel about 120 metres long, which ends at an iron door.
“This is where the hostages were held captive and killed,” Hagari says in the video, which lasts about three and a half minutes.
The bodies were recovered earlier this month.
“This is their blood,” Hagari said in the video, pointing to large dark stains on the tunnel floor. “They were here, weeks and months, in this tunnel where there is no air to breathe, where you can’t stand.”
“They survived, but they were killed by terrorists,” he added.
According to the Israeli military, the six bodies were found just over a week ago and transferred to Israel.
The army suspects that the hostages were deliberately killed by their captors shortly before the bodies were found. Hamas, however, claimed that the hostages were killed by an Israeli airstrike.
There are still 101 hostages in Hamas hands, “some of them alive,” Hagari said, adding that they are being held in similar tunnels.
