The Israeli army confirmed on Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages from an underground tunnel in the area of Rafahin the southern Gaza Strip, and confirmed his return to Israeli territory.
The deceased, all taken hostage on October 7 during the Hamas attack, were identified as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino.
The military spokesman, Daniel HagariHagari said this morning that the six hostages were killed by Hamas shortly before forces reached them, according to an initial investigation. Their bodies were found about a kilometer from where the Bedouin hostage, Kaid Farhan al-Qadi, was found alive last week, Hagari said.
This Saturday, around eleven o’clock in the evening, the Army already confirmed having found “several corpses during the fighting” in Gaza and assured that “troops continue to operate in the area and carry out a process of extraction and identification.”
It is only now being made public that the bodies found belong to four men and two women, which reduced the number of people still captive to 97of the 251 kidnapped on October 7. Of these, at least 33 are confirmed dead.
“A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for more than two months. If it weren’t for the delays, the sabotage and the excuses, Those whose deaths we learned of this morning would probably still be alive.“, reacted to this news the Forum of Hostages and Missing Families, which announced demonstrations this Sunday in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.
Among the dead, many of them in their twenties, is the American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin24 years old and born in California, whose family confirmed his death in a Facebook post. The President of the United States, Joe Bidenoffered his condolences in a statement. On October 7, Hersh attended the NOVA music festival, where he was kidnapped and injured, forced to use a tourniquet, and had a hand amputated, as seen in videos of the attack. Just four months ago, in a propaganda video released by Hamas on April 24, Hersh was seen in good health, reading into the camera a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not doing enough to free the hostages.
His family is also one of the most active in the fight for the return of the captives. In November, his mother, Rachel, was among 12 relatives who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, and both parents have always been very explicit about the urgency of reaching a truce agreement.Hersh, we work day and night and we will never stop“, reiterated Rachel Goldberg-Polin on August 29, when a convoy with relatives of the hostages headed toward the Gaza demarcation line to demand the release of their loved ones.
