JERUSALEM: Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza where they were apparently killed not long before Israeli troops reached them, the military said on Sunday.
The Israeli military announced the recovery of the bodies from underground in the southern city of Rafah as a polio vaccination campaign began in the war-shattered territory and violence flared in the occupied West Bank.
The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing.
“According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure after nearly 11 months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to reach a deal that includes a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages, said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible.
“Whoever murders hostages — does not want a deal,” he said.
Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire agreement, was to blame for the deaths.
A senior Hamas official said Sunday that several of the six Israeli hostages found dead in a Gaza tunnel had been “approved” for release in the event of a truce deal.
“Some of the names of the captives announced as found by the (Israeli) occupier... were part of the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved” in a proposed exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”
The recovered bodies were from about 250 hostages captured during the Hamas-led shock incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza on Oct. 7 last year.
Their deaths leaves 101 Israeli and foreign captives still in Gaza, but around a third of these are known to have died, with the fate of others unknown.
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas assault, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, at least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry says.
This combination of pictures created on September 01, 2024 shows undated portraits provided on September 1, 2024, by The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, representing families of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza, showing hostages (clockwork from top-L) Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubnov, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi and Hersh Goldberg-Polin at unspecified locations. (AFP)
Sunday’s news that more hostage bodies had been recovered was likely to spur further protests by Israelis demanding a hostage release deal.
The Hostage Families Forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement.
“They were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” it said.
Israel’s Hagari said that days earlier, hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel, was rescued about a kilometer away.
After Alkadi was located, troops were told to be cautious because other hostages might be in the area, but there had been no precise information on their location, he said.
’Devastated and outraged’
US President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages, said the six included Israeli American Goldberg-Polin and that he was “devastated and outraged.”
“Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” he said in a statement.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was captured at a music festival near the Gaza border and appeared in a video released by Hamas in late April.
Earlier, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden said he was “still optimistic” about a ceasefire deal to stop the conflict, adding that “people are continuing to meet.”
Months of stop-start negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to secure a ceasefire agreement, despite increased US pressure for a deal and repeated trips by top officials to the region.
The two sides have agreed to pause fighting for at least eight-hours daily from Sunday to Tuesday to allow the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and Palestinian medics to begin to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza.
The campaign comes after the WHO confirmed last month that a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
