GAZA – Israel has called securing the freedom of the hostages abducted to the Gaza Strip a key goal in its war against Hamas, so many in the country were shocked on Feb 6 when it emerged that at least one-fifth of the captives were already dead.
The news was likely to worsen a furore in Israel, where a debate over the government’s course of action in Gaza regarding the hostages has become divisive.
Israeli intelligence officers have concluded that at least 30 of the remaining 136 hostages captured by Hamas and its allies on Oct 7 have died since the start of the war, according to a confidential assessment that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The bodies of two other dead Israelis, killed in 2014 during a previous war between Israel and Hamas, have been held in the territory ever since, bringing the total number of slain hostages inside Gaza to at least 32.
The Israeli government late on Feb 6 released a statement saying that 31 had been confirmed dead; the discrepancy between the two numbers could not be immediately reconciled.
“We have informed 31 families that their captured loved ones are no longer among the living and that we have pronounced them dead,” Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesperson, said on Feb 6 after the Times published a report about the previously undisclosed hostage deaths.
Four officials said Israeli intelligence officers were also assessing unconfirmed information that indicated that at least 20 other hostages may have also been killed.
More than 240 hostages were captured by Hamas and its allies during the Oct 7 raid on southern Israel, prompting Israel to retaliate with massive airstrikes and then a ground invasion.
Roughly half of the hostages have been freed, almost all during a temporary truce in November, when they were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails.
Since that truce, the Israeli government has said that its military operations in Gaza would pave the way to further hostage releases.
But survivors and families of the hostages have said that the military campaign is endangering their loved ones’ lives. NYTIMES
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