Israel recovers bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military forces on Friday said its troops retrieved the bodies of three Israeli hostages in Gaza, killed by Hamas during its October 7 attack. One of them was identified to be of the German-Israeli Shani Louk.

A photo of 22-year-old Louk’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.

The military identified the other two bodies as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a 56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter.

"All three were killed by Hamas while escaping the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, where militants killed hundreds of other people," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a news conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking,” saying, “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”

The military stated that the bodies were found overnight without further elaboration on the details of where they were located.

Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it claims that the hostages are being held.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others during the October 7 attack in 2023.

Around half of those hostages have since been freed, in exchange for the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

Israel claims that around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians since the attack, according to Gaza health officials.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, has vowed to eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back but has made little progress.

Along with the pressure on him to resign, the U.S. has also threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas.

On-and-off negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt have not yielded much.