The Israeli military said Sunday that six bodies found in a tunnel under the Gaza Strip belonged to hostages who had been killed by Hamas, setting off a wave of grief and anger in Israel and further cleaving the deep divisions among the public, and the country’s leaders, over the future course of the war.
The Israeli military said Sunday that six bodies found in a tunnel under the Gaza Strip belonged to hostages who had been killed by Hamas, setting off a wave of grief and anger in Israel and further cleaving the deep divisions among the public, and the country’s leaders, over the future course of the war.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesperson, said the bodies had been recovered a day earlier in the labyrinths under the southern city of Rafah, about 1 kilometer from where a seventh hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, was found alive last week.
“They were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” Hagari said. The Israeli Ministry of Health said in a statement Sunday that the hostages were killed by “a number of short-range shots” and that they had died about “48-72 hours before their examination.”
In an initial statement, Hamas did not directly address the accusations but said responsibility for the deaths lay with Israel, which it blamed for the lack of an agreement to stop the fighting in Gaza. Hamas later asserted in a separate statement that the hostages were killed by the Israeli military’s bullets, without providing evidence.
The recovery of the hostages’ bodies put into stark relief the competing priorities of Israel’s leaders: those intent on dismantling Hamas through the pursuit and killing of its fighters and officials, and those who want to reach a truce that would bring home the dozens of captives still believed to be alive in the enclave.
For many in Israel, the news brought months of simmering anger to a furious boil Sunday, much of it directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose critics blamed him for refusing to make a cease-fire deal that would bring the hostages back. Protesters flooded the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities Sunday night in what was one of the largest demonstrations in the nearly 11 months of war.
Supporters of a truce called for further mass demonstrations as well as a strike set to begin Monday.
Among the captives declared dead Sunday was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual American Israeli citizen born in Berkeley, California, whose parents have been some of the most prominent of those advocating for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal and made that case in a speech last month at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Hawkish elements in the Israeli government, by contrast, called Sunday for the war to be intensified in retaliation for the hostages’ deaths.
And amid that debate, the Israeli military continued its bombardment of Gaza on Sunday, striking a former school in Gaza City that the military said Hamas was using as a “command and control complex.”
Details surrounding the deaths of the Israeli hostages and the recovery of their bodies remained sparse Sunday.
