The bodies of six hostages abducted alive by Hamas on October 7 were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah overnight, shortly after they were murdered by terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday.
The hostages were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 27.
Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi, Lubnov, Sarusi and Danino (an off-duty noncommissioned officer) were abducted from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, while Gat was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri.
Their bodies were found with gunshot wounds to the head and other parts of their bodies, the Ynet news site reported. An autopsy found they were murdered in the 48 hours prior to the discovery of their bodies, the report said.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the six were “brutally murdered” by Hamas shortly before troops arrived — possibly only a day or two before they were found.
“According to an initial assessment… they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short while before we reached them. They were abducted alive on the morning of October 7 by the Hamas terror group,” Hagari said in a press conference.
“Their bodies were found during the fighting in Rafah, in a tunnel, about a kilometer away from the tunnel from which we rescued Farhan al-Qadi a few days ago,” he said.
The IDF said that it did not have the exact location of the hostages but had indications of a general area where the six could be held, and was therefore operating carefully in the area.
“Since Farhan was found, troops were given an emphasis on operating carefully even more than usual, because of the understanding that additional hostages may be in the area. We did not have information on the exact location of the hostages,” Hagari said.
Troops began to search a tunnel complex, some 20 meters underground, on Saturday and found the hostages, dead, in the afternoon. Their bodies were extracted from Gaza overnight and brought to Israel for identification.
No comments:
Post a Comment