Al-Qassam Brigades releases mock birthday videos of Oron Shau

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released on Saturday two videos simulating Israeli soldier Oron Shaul celebrating his birthday and three years in captivity.

The videos seem to be intended for the Israeli government, which already announced its intention to convene a meeting for the security cabinet on Sunday to discuss the issue of missing soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

One of the videos features Shaul, with his face digitally superimposed on an actor’s body, sitting forlornly before a cake with three candles and struggling to set himself free when suddenly Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, wearing a clown face and costume, dashes into the room and blows out the candles.

This video ends with an intertitle reading “The decision is in the government’s hand.”

The second video shows unidentified soldiers in army uniform, one of them sitting in a wheelchair, celebrating Shaul’s birthday and their captivity for three years. A cake placed on a table reads “Oron, three years in Hamas captivity.”

There are captions at the end of this video reading “Oron in a Hamas jail for three years,” and “A new year and soldier Shaul is still far from his family.”

On July 20, 2014, al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for killing 14 Israeli soldiers and capturing Oron Shaul during an Israeli military incursion into the eastern border area of al-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City.