The Israeli military announced Friday that it has recovered the bodies of three hostages from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. <\/p>\n
The hostages were identified as Shani Louk, Amit Bouskila, and Itshak Gelernter, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a press conference in Tel Aviv. All three were killed while escaping the Nova music festival and their bodies taken into Gaza, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were celebrating life in the Nova music festival and they were murdered by Hamas,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The bodies were identified by authorities and the families have been informed, Hagari said. <\/p>\n
The bodies were transferred to medical professionals for forensic examination. The families were then notified, he added. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his grief in a post on X on Friday. \u201cThe heart breaks for the great loss. My wife Sara and I grieve with the families. All our hearts are with them in this hour of grieving,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will return all our hostages, the dead and the alive alike. I congratulate our brave forces who, with determined action, have returned our sons and daughters home,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Of the three hostages, only Louk had previously been confirmed dead by the Israeli government. <\/p>\n
Her lifeless body was seen on video on the back of a Hamas truck after the music festival attack. <\/p>\n
Around 240 people were taken hostage and moved to Gaza during Hamas\u2019 October 7 attack on Israel that also killed more than 1,200 people. A little more than 100 were freed during a release deal in November, but the IDF believes there are still 132 hostages being held in Gaza, 128 of whom were taken on October 7. <\/p>\n
The IDF believed that of those 132 hostages, 40 are believed to be dead, including two who were taken in 2014. <\/p>\n
A deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages has remained elusive for months, despite rounds of talks between Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams. <\/p>\n
Last Friday, Hamas militants said Israel\u2019s rejection of a ceasefire plan submitted by mediators at negotiations in Cairo had sent hostage release talks back to \u201csquare one.\u201d <\/p>\n
The statement came a day after the latest round of Gaza truce and hostage deal talks ended in Cairo, without a deal. <\/p>\n
The militant group also accused Netanyahu of hindering the ceasefire talks, so as to use negotiations as a cover to attack the southern Gaza city of Rafah. <\/p>\n
This is a breaking news story and will be updated<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Israeli military announced Friday that it has recovered the bodies of three hostages from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. The hostages were identified as Shani Louk, Amit Bouskila, and Itshak Gelernter, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a press conference in Tel Aviv. All three were killed while escaping the Nova <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}