A terrorist group in Gaza released a hostage video on Tuesday of an Israeli Amazon employee who was kidnapped during Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 attacks – and has been held in the war-torn enclave ever since.
Sasha Troufanov, a 28-year-old computer engineer with the Tel Aviv-based microelectronics firm Annapurna Labs, an Amazon subsidiary, wore a black, white and red polo in the video, which he addressed to the Israeli public and “all of the protesters,” according to The Jerusalem Post.
Troufanov – who is being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad – added that “in the next few days, you will hear the truth of what happened to me, as well as the other prisoners in Gaza.”
He also asked people to “wait patiently,” the outlet said.
“The proof of life from Alexander (Sasha) Trpfanov is additional evidence that the Israeli government must give a significant mandate to the negotiating team, which will be able to lead to a deal for the return of all the hostages – the living to rehabilitation and the murdered to burial,” the Hostages & Missing Families Forum said in a statement after the video’s release.
Troufanov was one of the roughly 250 people abducted by Hamas terrorists during the group’s murderous attacks., which left nearly 1,200 Israelis dead.
Amazon employees in Israel have hung signs, made t-shirts and held events in solidarity with Troufanov, but they are reportedly frustrated over management declining to issue any public statement about his abduction.
Troufanov’s father, Vitali, a Russian immigrant to Israel, was killed.
Troufanov’s mother, grandmother and girlfriend were freed by Hamas as part of an earlier truce between the group and the Israeli government six weeks after the attack.
On the day of the massacre, Cohen witnessed her boyfriend “beaten bloody and thrown face-first into the ground,” she told the Jerusalem Post reported last week.
Troufanov remains captive more than seven months later.
After the carnage, Jewish employees at Amazon both in Israel and in its offices worldwide wanted to hang signs on company grounds marking the number of days Troufanov was being held in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
