In the video, the terrorists can be seen pulling the soldier from his tank located near the border with Gaza, and celebrating his capture. They later tell the soldier to look at the person who is filming him being taken into Gaza, and that he should not worry because one day he will return to Israel. The video was seized by IDF troops operating in Gaza.
Hamas video shows abduction of Nimrod Cohen into Gaza
The soldier's father, Yehuda Cohen said his family first viewed videos of Nimrod’s abduction about two months ago. “We were invited to the liaison office to watch them,” he said. “They told us then they were checking the possibility of releasing them. Over the weekend they released part of them to us—these are the videos we are publishing tonight, after we pressed them several times.”
“I keep thinking what went through Nimrod’s mind while he went through all this,” Cohen said. “Oct. 7 was a day of trauma for him—from 6:30 a.m. on the way with the tank and its malfunction, then the hit to the tank that caused the fatal injury of the driver, Shaked Dahan. Then the attempts to treat him, then the suffocation from the smoke inside the tank that forced them to come out, then watching his friends being murdered before his eyes, and then being violently taken into Gaza. When I see these videos, I think of him. I’m his father and I live relatively okay. I’m free. Nimrod is the one in the tunnels. What hurts me is what he is going through.”
Nimrod Cohen was abducted from Tank 3, where he fought Hamas terrorsts on the morning of the October 7 attack alongside Lt. Omer Neutra, Sgt. Shaked Dahan, and Sgt. Oz Daniel. Their unit was stationed near the White House outpost, between the kibbutzim Nir Oz and Nirim. On the day of the attack, Nimrod’s parents, Vicki and Yehuda, saw a video of the tank crew’s abduction. Yehuda recognized his son leaning against the barrel. Nimrod is the youngest brother of Yotam and the twin of Romi.
Yehuda Cohen sharply criticized Netanyahu, accusing him of changing positions to avoid a deal. “Netanyahu doesn’t want a deal. Netanyahu wants to prolong the war. That’s his way of surviving right now, that’s how he keeps his coalition with the terror-convicted (government minister Itamar) Ben-Gvir and the pyromaniac (government minister Bezalel) Smotrich, and that’s what drives him,” he said.
“Netanyahu is busy only with tricks," he said. "The rules of the game are known in advance. When Netanyahu demanded a partial deal, Hamas wanted a full deal. Netanyahu insisted on partial because he saw it served him, letting him delay deals and extend the war. Now Hamas agrees to a partial deal on Israel’s terms, and again Netanyahu changes his mind and says he always insisted on a full deal.”
Cohen accused the prime minister of avoiding accountability. “Netanyahu stalls for the simple reason that he is always looking for someone else to blame. He’s been doing it since Oct. 7. Everyone is guilty of Hamas’ attack except him—the one who funded Hamas, who ignored all the warnings,” he said. “The only thing driving Netanyahu is his personal survival. Nothing else interests him. That’s the problem. This is what happens when you put a criminal defendant at the head of a state.”
He said the families are continuing to push for action. “Netanyahu acts only under pressure. Inside Israel that pressure is public opinion. Netanyahu doesn’t care about public opinion. That’s putting it nicely, but we have no choice,” Cohen said. “We are also trying to apply pressure abroad—not so much on Trump, we know exactly whom he loves. We’re waiting for August to end, for Europe to come back to life, and through the Europeans to push Netanyahu—recognition of a Palestinian state, sanctions on Israel, an embargo on Israel. There’s no choice. When an irresponsible person heads a state, you have to do everything to remove him, so we can end this.”
“Trump wants Netanyahu as Israel’s leader for two reasons: people with the same traits like to protect each other, and because it suits Trump that Netanyahu turns Israel into America’s second Puerto Rico, another dependency,” Cohen continued. “Trump likes it when people flatter him, grovel to him. The only person in the world Netanyahu grovels to is Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first deal in January was staged by Trump and Netanyahu. On one hand Trump showed the world that when he says something it happens, and on the other Netanyahu got backing from Trump. And the proof is that we’re at the end of August, and his statement was at the beginning of last November. Since then the war has only intensified, the suffering of the hostages has only grown, and we see no horizon.”
Six hundred eighty-nine days have passed since Oct. 7, and 49 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, both living and dead. Cohen said what sustains his family is the knowledge that Nimrod is alive.
“We have no choice. We keep living, we keep breathing. What sustains us is the knowledge that Nimrod is alive and that it depends on us, on our fight, to bring his release as soon as possible. That’s what drives us, that’s what keeps us going. Nimrod will eventually be free. We’re making sure it will be as soon as possible.”
