(Jerusalem) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Sunday to “settle his score” with the Palestinian Hamas, after the death of six hostages whose bodies were found in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
“He who kills hostages does not want an agreement” for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, Mr. Netanyahu added, threatening the Palestinian Islamist movement: “We will pursue you, we will catch you and we will settle your score.”
Earlier, a Hamas leader, Ezzat Rishq, had said that Israel was “responsible for the deaths” of the hostages “because it persists in continuing its genocidal war.” […] and to flee any ceasefire agreement.”
The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it had identified the bodies of the six hostages, including two women and four men, including an Israeli-American and an Israeli-Russian.
“The army and the Shin Bet,” Israel’s domestic intelligence service, “have located [samedi] and recovered the bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino from a tunnel in the Rafah area,” in the southern Gaza Strip, the army said in a statement.
BRING THEM HOME NOW PHOTOS, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
From left to right: first row Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and second row Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi
Five of them – aged 23 to 32 – were abducted from the Nova techno music festival by Hamas commandos.
A senior Palestinian Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that “some” of the six hostages “were part of the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved.”
Israeli media reports say that Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and two Israelis, Carmel Gat and Eden Yerushalmi, were on a list of hostages to be released during the first phase of a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, which has been under negotiation for several months.
The Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also suggested that Mr. Goldberg-Polin’s name was on the list.
He also assured that “several” of the hostages “were alive and were killed by gunfire and bombardments from the Israeli occupier.”
In the Hamas attack on October 7, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, 251 people were kidnapped in Israel and taken to Gaza. The massive attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
PHOTO OHAD ZWIGENBERG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
People protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Demonstrators protest against the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the militant group Hamas, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Israeli retaliation has left at least 40,691 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas’s health ministry. The majority of the dead are women and minors, according to the UN.
For months, Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to hammer out a deal in Gaza, based on a plan proposed in late May by US President Joe Biden.
Israel and Hamas say they accept it but do not agree on certain conditions for its implementation, mainly the maintenance of Israeli troops on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Mr Netanyahu also referred to the deaths of three Israeli police officers in a shootout on Sunday morning in the southern occupied West Bank.
This attack was not claimed but Hamas saw it as “a heroic operation of the resistance” and “a natural response to the massacres of the Palestinian people” in a statement.
“We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy that wants to murder us all. This very morning, he murdered three police officers,” Netanyahu said.
“The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities like those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything possible to ensure that it cannot commit them again,” he continued.