The Israeli military said Friday that its troops in Gaza had discovered the bodies of three Israelis. hostages killed by Hamas during his attack on October 7, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of Louk, 22,’s twisted body in the back of a van ricocheted around the world and highlighted the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel. The army identified the other two bodies as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a 56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter.
All three were killed by Hamas as they fled the Nova music festival, an open-air dance party near the border with Gaza, where militants killed hundreds of people, the military spokesman said. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, during a press conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking,” declaring: “We will return all our hostages, living and dead.”
This combination of photos provided by the Hostage Families Forum headquarters shows, from left, Itzik Gelernter, Shani Louk and Amit Buskila. The Israeli army declared on Friday May 17, 2024 that its troops in Gaza had found the bodies of the three Israeli hostages killed by Hamas during its attack on October 7, 2023, including German-Israeli Shani Louk. (Hostage Families Forum Headquarters via AP)
The army said the bodies were found overnight, without elaborating, and gave no immediate details on their whereabouts. Israel operates in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped around 250 others during the October 7 attack. About half of those hostages have since been released, most in exchanges for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a week-long ceasefire in November.
Israel says that around a hundred hostages are still captive in Gaza, as well as the bodies of around thirty others. Israel’s war in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
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Netanyahu has pledged to eliminate Hamas and return all hostages, but he has made little progress. He faces pressure to resign and the United States has threatened to reduce its support for the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and release the hostages, and those who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for the eradication of Hamas. Ad hoc negotiations, mediated by Qatar, the UNITED STATES and Egypt didn’t give much.
