Hamas releases new video said to show hostage Maxim Herkin alive

# Hamas releases new video said to show hostage Maxim Herkin alive

*Event date: 2025-05-03*

A Hamas video released on Saturday appears to show Israeli hostage Maxim Herkin alive, according to reporting from Haaretz. The family has not authorized the clip for public release, and the report gives no indication that the material has been independently verified beyond the fact that it was circulated by Hamas.

The image of Herkin matters because it is one more signal that hostage cases from the October 7, 2023 attacks continue to shape the wider war and the political pressure around it. But the material itself is limited. The report identifies the video as a second clip of Herkin and does not provide any additional confirmation about his condition, location or the timing of the recording beyond the publication date of the report.

Herkin was abducted during the Nova music festival massacre in southern Israel in 2023, the same attack in which Hamas-led militants killed and captured large numbers of Israelis. Haaretz also reported that Herkin was born in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in Ukraine, a detail that helps explain why his case has drawn attention in both Israel and Russia. According to the report, Russia has taken an active part in trying to secure his release.

For families of hostages, each clip can become a public event as well as a private ordeal. Video releases can offer proof of life, but they can also intensify pressure, uncertainty and anger because they are controlled by the captors and generally arrive without context. In this case, the report is especially cautious: the family has not approved publication, and the reporting does not claim that the footage provides any independent update on Herkin’s health.

What can be said with confidence from the supplied evidence is narrow but important. Hamas has released another video said to show Herkin alive, and the family has not consented to its publication. Beyond that, the clip should be treated as a hostage communication rather than a verified full account of his condition.

The wider conflict has repeatedly used hostage imagery as leverage, reassurance and propaganda. That makes the sourcing discipline around any such clip especially important. In this case, the available record supports only the fact of the release, the family’s lack of authorization and Herkin’s status as a hostage from the Nova attack.

The latest video is therefore significant less for what it proves than for what it reminds viewers of: the hostage crisis remains unresolved, and the people held in Gaza continue to appear in fragments, through material produced by the side holding them.