The body of a Mexican-French and a Brazilian man are among three found by the Israeli army in Gaza on Friday, all of them believed to be killed on the October 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas and which catalyzed the current war.
30-year-old Orión Hernández Radoux had attended the Nova music festival near Gaza, where hundreds were murdered by members of Hamas. Michel Nisembaum (59) was driving to an army base to pick up his granddaughter but never made it.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that, according to "reliable intelligence," they were killed after being abducted in the Mefalsim Area and his body then taken into Gaza.
The same was the case for Hanan Yablonka (42), found with Hernández and Nisembaum, and four other hostages whose bodies were found last week. They were all recovered from a tunnel in Jabaliya, in Northern Gaza.
One of them was Shani Louk, Hernández's girlfriend who also attended the festival and whose image traveled the world after being dragged back to Gaza in the back of a truck.
The IDF said the bodies were recovered in a joint operation conducted by the military and Shin Bet security agency following the analysis of "precise intelligence" obtained during the past days.
French President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences to Hernández's family in a post on X on Friday, saying "France remains more than ever committed to the release of all the hostages."
Nisembaum was born in Niterói, in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, and had been living in Israel since 1988.
The news reduces the amount of hostages with unknown fate in Gaza to 125. In that context, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a new statement calling for the government to do everything in its power to reach a deal and return those still captive.
"The recovery of their bodies is a silent but resolute reminder that the State of Israel is obligated to immediately dispatch negotiation teams with a clear demand to bring about a deal that will swiftly return all the hostages home: the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for burial."
The Israeli government this week took steps to revive hostage talks, which had reached a stalemate in the past weeks, after families of the hostages published a video showing young women being abducted and taken to Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and his wife were mourning the deaths and praised the IDF for acting "with great courage in the heart of enemy territory, in order to return them to their families and to the grave of Israel."
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