Jerusalem, July 25 (EFE).- The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) retrieved the bodies of five hostages killed during Hamas Oct.7 attacks in an “intelligence-based” operation in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, the authorities said.
The operation was carried out on Wednesday by agents of the Shin Bet intelligence service, and soldiers of the Israel Defense Force, the Army said in a statement Thursday.
The bodies were identified as Maya Goren and three soldiers: Staff Sergeant (res.) Oren Goldin, Staff Sergeant Tomer Ahimas, Sergeant Kiril Brodsky, and Ravid Arie Katz according to an IDF statement. The five had already been confirmed dead before.
With this development, 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 are believed to remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
The Israeli authorities said that these hostages were killed during the Oct.7 attack by Hamas, and their bodies were taken away to the Gaza Strip
Some 1,200 were killed, more than 800 of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack on Israel.
Since then, Israel’s military response in Gaza has so far left more than 39,000 dead and 90,000 wounded.
The operation was carried out following intelligence from the Shin Bet, with much of the information extracted from interrogations of Hamas militiamen and other groups detained during the offensive.
The announcement of the recovery of the bodies of these hostages came a few hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech late Wednesday before the US Congress defending military actions in the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, theIDF confirmed the deaths of two other hostages, Alex Danzig and Geev Buchstab, kidnapped from the kibbutz of Nir Oz and Nirim, respectively, and families again blamed Netanyahu for the delay in negotiations for a deal.
So far the parties have only agreed to a week-long truce in November, which allowed the exchange of 105 Israeli hostages for 240 Palestinian prisoners. In addition, four hostages were released in October and seven have been rescued by the Army. EFE
sga/sc
