Netanyahu has expressed sorrow over the deaths of the hostages, saying the killings prove that Hamas does not want a cease-fire deal. He accused Hamas of killing them in “cold blood” and said Israel would hold the Palestinian militant group accountable.
ADVERTISEMENTIsrael on Sunday said it had recovered the bodies of six hostages during an operation in the Gaza Strip.
The military said all six had been killed shortly before the arrival of Israeli forces. Their recovery sparked calls for mass protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom many families of hostages and the Israeli public blame for failing to strike a deal with Hamas to end the ongoing war and bring the hostages back alive.
Negotiations over such a deal have dragged on for month.
Militants took captive five of the hostages at a music festival in southern Israel during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the war. The sixth was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri.
Netanyahu accused Hamas of scuttling ongoing cease-fire efforts. “Whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal,” he said in a statement posted on X. Critics in Israel have accused Netanyahu of dragging his feet in cease-fire talks, a charge he denies.
The Israeli army said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah around a kilometre from where another hostage was rescued alive last week.
“According to preliminary information, they were cruelly murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, told reporters.
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, blamed the hostages’ deaths on Israel and the United States, saying they would still be alive if Israel had accepted a cease-fire proposal that Hamas said it had agreed to back in July.
“Complete halt of the country”
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is eradicated and says military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages.
A forum of hostage families called for a massive protest on Sunday, demanding a “complete halt of the country” to push for the implementation of a cease-fire and hostage release.
“A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. Were it not for the delays, sabotage, and excuses those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive,” it said in a statement.
Some 250 hostages were taken on 7 October. Before the military’s announcement of the latest discovery of bodies, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still held in Gaza and about one-third of them were dead. In late August, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages in southern Gaza.
Eight hostages have been rescued by Israeli forces, the most recent found on Tuesday. More than 100 were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Two previous Israeli operations to free hostages killed scores of Palestinians. Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts.
ADVERTISEMENTHamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, when they stormed into southern Israel on 7 October, attacking army bases and several farming communities.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were fighters or civilians. It has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times, and plunged the besieged territory into a humanitarian catastrophe.
