Initial investigations by the Israel Defense Forces into the deaths of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip indicate that they were killed shortly after the IDF located them, Channel 12 News reported. Last night, the IDF retrieved the bodies of the six from a tunnel in the Rafah area. The military could not say how long ago the hostages were killed by their captors, putting the time at between one and three days. The National Center for Forensic Medicine will determine the time of death after examining the bodies.
The six have been identified as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg Bolin (an American citizen), Alexander Lobanov, Almog Serousi and Uri Danino. Carmel Gat was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, while the others were abducted from the Nova music festival that day near Kibbutz Re’em.
The tunnel from which the bodies were recovered was about a kilometer from the tunnel from which the IDF and Shin Bet rescued Israeli hostage Qaed Farhan al-Qadi last Tuesday. The IDF said at the time that it believed other hostages were being held in the area.
The Families of the Kidnapped Committee said in a statement: “Eleven months after the Israeli government and its president abandoned the kidnapped, the Families of the Kidnapped Committee announces that the abandonment of the kidnapped has ended. The families of the kidnapped call on the public at large to go out in a mass demonstration, bring the country to a complete standstill, and call for the implementation of a deal to release the kidnapped now.”
Histadrut chairman Arnon Ben-David is under pressure from the hostages’ families and business leaders to call a general strike in support of the release deal. Ben-David is expected to hold another meeting with the hostages’ families later today.
The Israeli cabinet voted late Thursday in favor of a resolution proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would keep IDF troops on the Gaza side of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt through which Hamas has smuggled weapons and supplies for years via a network of tunnels. Hamas insists that Israel withdraw from the corridor under any deal. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant opposed the resolution, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir abstained.
“The diplomatic-security cabinet must meet immediately and cancel the decision passed on Thursday. It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood. We must return the remaining hostages to their homes,” Galant said this morning.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said: “There is a way to balance the security needs of the State of Israel with its moral obligation to return the hostages. Chaos, confrontation and political considerations have crept into our Holy of Holies. Anyone who evades responsibility is not a leader.”
Commenting on the killing of the six hostages, US President Joe Biden said he was “shocked and outraged,” particularly by the death of Hersh Goldberg Polin. “This is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” Biden added. “There is no doubt that Hamas leaders will pay the price for these crimes. We will continue to work around the clock to reach an agreement to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
This article was published in Globes, Israeli Business News – en.globes.co.il – on September 1, 2024.
© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.