The Republic’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Tuesday mourned the death of a hostage of the Islamist Hamas movement, who had Portuguese citizenship, after it was confirmed by Israeli authorities.
The death of 53-year-old Yossi Sharabi was announced by Israeli Ambassador to Portugal Dor Shapira.
“Having confirmed that the hostage of Portuguese nationality, held in the Gaza Strip, was a victim of the military situation in this territory, the President of the Republic expresses condolences to his family and friends and regrets the circumstances that led to his death,” reads the message published with regret on the official website President of the Republic on the Internet.
On the social network X (formerly Twitter), Dor Shapira reported that Sharabi “was killed while being captured by Hamas terrorists.”
“Our hearts are broken. This evening the Israeli authorities officially announced that Yossi Sharabi was killed in captivity,” the diplomat wrote.
Hamas had already announced the death of Sharabi on Monday, who appeared in a propaganda video published on Sunday by the Islamist movement on the Telegram network asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli embassy in Portugal told Lusa that Sharabi has Portuguese citizenship and that his wife Nari was in Lisbon last month asking the government for help in his release.
Marking one hundred days of war, the families of more than a hundred hostages held by Hamas called for a mass demonstration in Tel Aviv on Sunday for 24 hours to demand the Israeli government do everything possible and negotiate whatever is necessary to bring them back. .. back, while Netanyahu is committed to maintaining military pressure on the Islamist group as the only alternative.
After October 7, fighting ceased only for a week – from November 24 to 30 – as a result of a truce brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, which included the release of 105 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners and entry into the country. humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas was sparked by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli territory, which killed some 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to Tel Aviv officials. More than 200 hostages were taken.
In response, Israel, which promised to eliminate the Palestinian movement, considered terrorist by the European Union and the United States, launched a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip, where, according to the local government, more than 24 thousand people have already been killed. – most of them were women, children and teenagers – and more than 57 thousand were injured, also mostly civilians.
The conflict has also displaced some 1.9 million people (about 85% of the population), plunging the overpopulated and impoverished Palestinian enclave into a severe humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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