Body of slain hostage Itay Svirsky recovered from Gaza by troops
Military says Svirsky, 38, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in captivity nearly a year ago; few details given on the operation
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency announced on Wednesday that the body of hostage Itay Svirsky was recovered by Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, 14 months after his kidnapping and nearly a year after he was murdered in Hamas captivity.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at a press conference that Svirsky’s body was recovered “in operational activity, details of which cannot be expanded upon, in order not to endanger the operational efforts of the IDF and Shin Bet.”
Earlier this year, the IDF said that Svirsky had been murdered in captivity by Hamas terrorists, around four months after he was taken hostage on October 7, 2024.
During his time in Gaza, he was held alongside hostages Yossi Sharabi and Noa Argamani. Sharabi was likely inadvertently killed as a result of an IDF strike, the military said in February, and Argamani was rescued in the summer.
The deaths of hostages Sharabi and Svirsky were announced by officials in mid-January.
The IDF has assessed that Svirsky was murdered by Hamas terrorists several days after the strike that likely killed Sharabi, and that he did not die in another strike, as the terror group had claimed.
After Sharabi and Svirsky were killed, Hamas in January issued a propaganda video showing them and Argamani.
Following the announcement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement expressing his condolences to Svirsky’s family and pledged to continue working to return all remaining 100 hostages.
Svirsky, 38, was visiting his parents, Orit Svirsky and Rafi Svirsky, in their Kibbutz Be’eri homes for the Simhat Torah holiday weekend when Hamas terrorists launched a massacre in the community on October 7, 2023.
Svirsky was with his mother in the sealed room of her house. She lived next door to her ex-husband, Rafi, his father.
Svirsky, who was single and lived in Tel Aviv, was known as the quintessential “uncle” to his nieces and nephews and his friends’ children. He was the only one of his parents’ four children in Be’eri at the time.
The family’s last communication with Svirsky and his mother was around 10 a.m.
The bodies of his parents, Orit and Rafi, were later found. They were buried on October 20, 2023.
Following the recovery of Svirsky’s body, it is now believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
