Israel says bodies of six hostages recovered from Gaza tunnel – Technologist

The Israeli military said that it had found the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, September 1, including a US-Israeli and a Russian-Israeli. Their remains were recovered Saturday “from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area” and returned to Israel where they were formally identified, the military said.

It said the dead hostages were Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino, who were all seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war. Gat was taken from the southern Israeli kibbutz community of Beeri, while the remaining five, ages 23 to 32, were abducted from a music festival near the Gaza border.

US President Joe Biden said that the body of the Israeli-American hostage Goldberg-Polin was among the six recovered in Gaza by Israeli forces on Saturday. “Earlier today, in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, Israeli forces recovered six bodies of hostages held by Hamas,” Biden said in a statement. “We have now confirmed that one of the hostages… was an American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin,” the president added.

The 23-year-old was among 251 hostages seized during the October 7 attack on southern Israel by Palestinian militants. Around 100 hostages remain in captivity, dozens of whom the Israeli military says are dead.

Diminishing hopes for a deal

The parents of Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted from the Supernova music festival, addressed delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month. On Thursday, the couple joined other relatives of hostages rallying near the Gaza border. “Hersh! It’s Mom… I love you, stay strong, survive,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin shouted into a microphone.

Her son had hidden in a bomb shelter with other people on October 7 but it was surrounded by gunmen, who attacked it with grenades. A Hamas video from the day showed him being loaded onto a pick-up truck with part of his left arm, which was blown off in the attack, missing. He appeared in a proof-of-life video released by Hamas on April 24 in which he said the captives were living “in hell.” His left arm had been amputated below the elbow.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the six hostages whose remains had been retrieved were alive when taken captive. “They were held hostage by Hamas and murdered in cold blood,” Gallant said in a statement. Military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said “they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them.” “The heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces,” President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. “The blood of our brothers cries out to us. Our sisters and brothers are still there enduring hell… We have the sacred and urgent mission to bring them home.”

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum also insisted that the only way to bring the remaining hostages to Israel was a negotiated deal. “A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months,” it said in a statement. “Were it not for the delays, sabotage, and excuses those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive.”