The bodies of six Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation, Israeli authorities said Tuesday. <\/p>\n
In a joint announcement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel\u2019s security agency (ISA) named them as Yoram Metzger, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Chaim Peri, Nadav Popplewell and Yagev Buchshtab. <\/p>\n
All but Munder had been announced dead in recent months by the Israeli military. <\/p>\n
\u201cTonight our forces returned the bodies of six of our hostages who were held by the murderous terrorist organization Hamas,\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, thanking those involved in the operation for their \u201cbravery and determined action.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOur hearts ache for the terrible loss,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Israeli authorities did not immediately release details of the operation to recover the hostages\u2019 bodies but the joint statement said it was \u201cenabled by precise intelligence from the ISA, IDF intelligence units, and the IDF Intelligence Directorate Hostage Headquarters.\u201d <\/p>\n
Munder, 79, Metzger, 80, and Peri, 80, were all residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, near the Gaza border, where they were captured during Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks, according to statements from the kibbutz. <\/p>\n
Munder was taken along with his wife, daughter and grandson. They were later freed during a temporary truce in November. Munder\u2019s son, Roee, was killed during the attack. <\/p>\n
Metzger\u2019s wife Tami was also kidnapped and later released in the November truce. <\/p>\n
Popplewell, who was 51 when abducted, and Buchshtab, 35, were taken from Kibbutz Nirim, the kibbutz said in a statement. <\/p>\n
The IDF said in July that Buchshtab was believed to have been held in Khan Younis and died several months ago, while the IDF was operating there. It did not detail the circumstances of the death at the time. <\/p>\n
About 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 other kidnapped during Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks on Israel, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 92,000 injured during Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the enclave. <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/i> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The bodies of six Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation, Israeli authorities said Tuesday. In a joint announcement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel\u2019s security agency (ISA) named them as Yoram Metzger, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Chaim Peri, Nadav Popplewell and Yagev Buchshtab. All but Munder had been announced dead <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6625","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\/6625","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=6625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}