Israel has recovered the bodies of six hostages who were seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack and taken to Gaza, its military has announced.
An overnight operation in Khan Younis in southern Gaza found the bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Chaim Peri, all civilians abducted from their homes in kibbutzim adjacent to Israel’s barrier wall with the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday.
The military gave no details about how or when the men died. Over the past few months, the families of five of the men announced they had been killed after being briefed on IDF intelligence findings. On Tuesday it was confirmed that Munder had also died.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, praised the recovery effort and said “our hearts ache for the terrible loss”. “The state of Israel will continue to make every effort to return all of our hostages – the living and the deceased,” he said.
In Gaza on Tuesday, at least 10 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced families west of Gaza City, the territory’s civil defence authorities said. Israel said the school was being used as a Hamas base.
The number and identities of the estimated 120 Israelis who remain in captivity in Gaza, and the sequencing of how they may be released, is one of the key stumbling blocks in renewed ceasefire talks. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Monday described the current round of negotiations as “maybe the last opportunity” to broker a truce agreement in the 10-month-old conflict.
In a phone call with Netanyahu on Tuesday afternoon, Keir Starmer expressed his condolences about the hostages, while also stressing his support for the US-brokered peace efforts.
“The leaders discussed diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages, and the prime minister welcomed Israel’s support for the American ‘bridging proposal’ and emphasised the need to move quickly,” a readout of the call released by the UK prime minister’s office said.
“Regional de-escalation was in everyone’s interests, as the impact of miscalculation would come at great costs for all sides, the leaders agreed.”
US officials have been criticised for being too optimistic in their claims that negotiators are on the verge of striking a deal; several rounds of talks since December have failed.
Netanyahu has been accused of obstructing a ceasefire deal for political gain, claims he denies. On Monday, his office put out a public statement in which the longtime Israeli leader appeared to support the “bridging proposal” put forward by the US and agreed in Qatar last week. However, large gaps remain between the sides as mediators prepare to meet again in Cairo on Wednesday or Thursday.
Hamas is not directly participating in these negotiations and has said the latest proposal on the table veers too closely to Israel’s demands. On Tuesday, the militant group said comments by Joe Biden that they were backing away from an agreement with Israel were “misleading”.
The plan would involve an initial six-week ceasefire, during which a limited number of female, elderly and sick Israeli hostages would be freed in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails. It would be indefinitely extendable while negotiators settled the second stage, in which soldiers and bodies would be returned, Israeli troops would begin to withdraw from Gaza and displaced Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to their homes in the north of the strip.
Another big obstacle is whether Israel remains in control of the Gaza-Egypt border – a red line for Hamas and for Egypt.
Blinken travelled onwards to Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday for further negotiations after meetings in Israel on Monday. In Egypt he met the president, Gen Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
After the meeting, Sisi said: “The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region.”
In Qatar, Blinken said “time is of the essence” in securing a ceasefire deal. “This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” he added.
The US diplomat’s trip – his ninth since the war broke out – is part of intense new international efforts to broker a ceasefire after the assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran.
Tehran and the powerful Lebanese militia have threatened retaliatory action. A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Alimohammad Naini, told reporters on Tuesday there could be a long wait for Iranian retaliation against Israel.
For all parties, a cessation of hostilities in Gaza is the best way to cool regional tensions. Along with other armed groups in Iran’s “axis of resistance” across Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Hezbollah have said they will stop attacking Israel and US assets in the region when the war in Gaza ends.
About 250 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage on 7 October in the Hamas invasion in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to Israeli tallies. A total of 40,200 people in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s ensuing retaliatory war on the strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. An estimated 10,000 more are buried beneath the rubble of buildings hit by airstrikes.
During a ceasefire in November, 105 Israeli hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israel’s jails, but the truce broke down after a week.
Since then, at least 43 hostages are believed to have died in captivity, according to official Israeli estimates. That number includes three hostages who were mistakenly shot dead by IDF soldiers in December and one, Sahar Baruch, who was killed in a failed rescue mission.
Hamas has claimed that several hostages died as a result of Israeli bombings. Last week, it made a rare statement on the killings of two unidentified male hostages, saying they were shot by their captor, contrary to orders, in revenge for the deaths of his children in an Israeli airstrike.
The Israeli military has rescued seven living hostages in three raids. A total of 274 people were killed and another 696 were injured in a June operation in Nuseirat refugee camp that freed four hostages, according to Palestinian medics, after the IDF launched airstrikes on the area to allow its commandos to escape after one of their vehicles broke down.
