A black shirt. A solemn tone. Facing the camera, the former CEO of SodaStream, Daniel Birnbaum, addresses Internet users. “Anyone from Gaza who delivers a living Israeli hostage will receive $100,000,” he says in a video published on on Saturday October 19. Before adding: “It’s time for you to take control of your life and build a future for yourself, for your family and for your community. Do it today.”
If the businessman insists so much on temporality, it is because the offer presented is only valid until Wednesday October 23. Midnight sharp. Until then, Gazans able to free Israeli hostages are invited to contact the person concerned on Telegram or WhatsApp. And this, “in complete confidentiality”.
10 million dollars promised
“For more than a year, I have been wondering what I can do for these families, for the hostages […]so I decided to seek out the hostage holders myself and make them an offer they can’t refuse. […] We’ll see if it works. Anyway, everything we’ve tried so far hasn’t worked,” the entrepreneur explained on N12, the most watched public channel in Israel. In total, nearly ten million dollars have been pledged to the inhabitants of Gaza in exchange for the release of dozens of people held in the Palestinian territory.
With such an attractive offer, there are many opportunists. In the 12 hours following the video message, Daniel Birnbaum claimed to have been contacted more than 50 times. Two days later, the former CEO of SodaStream confided to AFP that he had exceeded a hundred messages. Among them: threats, defamation, pornographic content, donors wishing to supplement financial rewards. But also, “10 to 20 calls that could be legitimate”, now under investigation.
A success vector of new initiatives. On Sunday, real estate developer David Hager joined the cause with another reward. With more than $400,000 raised through friends, the Israeli-American affirmed his desire to reach the sum of $10 million, calling on other businessmen to participate. “There are tech people here who are winning big and for them it’s nothing. I hope to bring a hundred hostages home […] even if we know that a large number of them are dead,” he explained on channel N12.
“Israel will not keep its promises”
Since the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on October 16, the Israeli media have feared that the Islamist movement would take revenge by assassinating hostages. This is why on Thursday October 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised the lives of Palestinians who would lay down their arms and free the hostages. But for Muhammad Al-Najjar, who fled the northern Gaza Strip for the south, the Israeli proposal is doomed to failure. “We don’t care about the messages the enemy sends us. [Israël] will not keep its promises,” he assured AFP.
An assertion supported by Michael Milshtein, expert from the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, interviewed by the news agency. For him, only a financial reward is likely to succeed. “There could be one, two or three cases, but we are not going to see the roads full of people saying they are ready to accept this offer. It has existed since the first day of the war,” he said.
On October 7, 2023, the Hamas attack in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, and 251 hostages were kidnapped. In November 2023, around a hundred of them were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Since then, 97 hostages are still waiting to experience the same fate. At present, one hope remains: financial reward. “I don’t expect to bring everyone back [mais] I would be happy if we recover even one hostage,” concluded the former CEO of SodaStream.