Israel says it found bullets in bodies of hostages brought back from Gaza

The Israeli army said on Thursday, August 22, that it had found bullets in the bodies of the six hostages it recently rescued from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. “The investigation into the circumstances of their deaths is continuing.”added an army spokesman, Daniel Hagari. The army had announced on Tuesday that it had brought back to Israel the bodies of six men, kidnapped by Hamas commandos during the attack of unprecedented scale by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 in southern Israel.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari later clarified that the six men had “were killed while [ses] troops were operating in Khan Younis”a city in the southern Gaza Strip. “The exact circumstances of the hostages’ deaths in captivity are under investigation.”he added, assuring that the results would be “presented to families and the public”.

Several families of hostages who died in captivity reported being informed by the army that their loved ones may have been killed in ground operations or in Israeli bombings in Gaza. The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 105 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.

The aerial bombardment campaign and the ground offensive launched by Israel in retaliation have left at least 40,265 dead and nearly 93,000 injured, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry.