Daily Briefing Dec. 22: Day 77 - How does IDF determine hostages' deaths without bodies?

Health reporter Renee Ghert-Zand on an unprecedented committee of MDs who attempt to bring closure to families; political reporter Sam Sokol on a US evangelical mission to the south

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Today is day 77 of the war. Health reporter Renee Ghert-Zand and political reporter Sam Sokol join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today’s podcast.

As of this morning, 139 soldiers have fallen in the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza. But thousands more are wounded. Ghert-Zand reports that Israel is not prepared to handle these numbers in the long or short term.

Sokol accompanied a mission of US evangelical leaders to the south this week, a group that was put together by Joel C. Rosenberg, a Jerusalem-based Israeli Christian interfaith activist, and Likud MK Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN. We hear impressions from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Ken Blackwell, a former US ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights who worked for Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in the 1970s.

The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 21 hostages, with the bodies of only eight of them having been recovered by Israel. The task of determining the death of hostages held in Gaza has fallen to an independent committee of three leading Israeli medical professionals. Ghert-Zand brings highlights from her interview with Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s director general Prof. Ofer Merin, one of the members of the committee.

For the latest updates, please look at The Times of Israel’s ongoing live blog.