Israel recovers bodies of six hostages in Gaza, sparking protests

JERUSALEM:

Israel said it recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in Gaza where they were apparently killed shortly before its troops reached them, triggering Israeli protests on Sunday and planned strikes over the failure to save them.

The Israeli military announced the recovery of the bodies from underground in the southern city of Rafah, as a polio vaccination campaign began in the war-shattered territory and violence flared in the occupied West Bank.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing.

"According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces growing calls to end nearly 11 months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza with a deal that includes a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages, said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible.

"Whoever murders hostages - does not want a deal," he said.

Read also: Elderly Palestinian dies in Israeli prison amid allegations of systematic torture

Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire agreement, was to blame for the deaths.

"Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. "The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal."

The recovered bodies were from about 250 hostages captured during the Hamas-led shock incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza on Oct. 7 last year.

Their deaths leave 101 Israeli and foreign captives still in Gaza, but around a third of these are known to have died, with the fate of others unknown.

Thousands of Israelis joined protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as pressure mounted on Netanyahu to do more to bring the remaining hostages home.

A Palestinian girl is vaccinated against polio, at a United Nations healthcare center in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 1, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

The head of Israel's trades union federation, Arnon Bar-David, called for a general strike on Monday to pressure the government into signing a deal and said Ben Gurion airport, Israel's main air transport hub, would be closed from 8 a.m. (0500 GMT).

"A deal is more important than anything else," he said. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who has clashed frequently with Netanyahu, also called for a deal and opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid had urged people to join the demonstration in Tel Aviv.

In Jerusalem, protestors blocked roads and demonstrated outside the prime minister's residence. Some lined roads, waving Israeli flags in honour of the six hostages.

Municipal services in Tel Aviv and other sites across Israel planned a half-day strike on Monday in solidarity with hostages and their families.

The Hostage Families Forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement.

"They were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages," it said.

'Devastated and outraged'

Netanyahu's office said he had spoken to the family of Alexander Lobanov, whose body was among those recovered, apologising and expressing "deep sorrow".

US President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages, said he was "devastated and outraged" at the news of the death of 23-year-old Israeli American Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages.

"Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages," he said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was "completely shocked" by the deaths.

Biden, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, earlier, said he was "still optimistic" about a ceasefire deal to stop the conflict.

Read: Israeli defence minister urges deal to secure return of Gaza hostages

Months of stop-start negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to secure a deal, despite increased US pressure and repeated trips by top officials to the region.

The two sides have agreed to pause fighting in areas of Gaza for at least eight hours daily from Sunday to Tuesday to allow a complex operation to vaccinate 640,000 children to begin.

The campaign comes after the confirmation last month that a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas assault, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, at least 40,738 Palestinians have been killed and 94,154 injured in Israel's military offensive in Gaza, the enclave's health ministry says.

Israeli forces continued to battle Hamas-led fighters in several parts of Gaza, with the Israeli military targeting what it said was a Hamas command centre in a former school in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said they had so far recovered four dead from the strike and that many others were wounded.

Also read: Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as Polio campaign launched

In Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians and wounded 10 others, according to medics.

The war has created a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as fuelling tensions across the region and in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli officials said on Sunday that three Israeli police officers had been killed when their vehicle came under fire near the city of Hebron.

Hundreds of Israeli troops have been carrying out raids across the West Bank since Wednesday in one of their largest actions in the area in months, which Israel says is aimed at rooting out fighters.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline member of Israel's security cabinet, called for tougher action against Palestinian fighters in comments from the scene of the attack.

Hamas praised the attack, but did not claim responsibility for it, saying it was a "natural response to the massacres and genocide in the Gaza Strip".

Palestinian armed factions said their fighters were confronting Israeli forces in the flashpoint West Bank city of Jenin with machine guns and explosive devices.