Israel said to hold bodies of five Gazan laborers murdered by Hamas on October 7
Terrorists attacked van carrying seven Palestinian workers driven by Bedouin Israeli man who was also murdered; two were taken alive, their fate unknown
Israel is holding the bodies of five Palestinian laborers from Gaza who were killed by Hamas terrorists along with their Bedouin Israeli driver during the October 7 massacre, while two others who were in the same van remain unaccounted for, according to a Hebrew media report Monday.
The military told the Haaretz newspaper in June it was storing five of the bodies — pulled from the gray Volkswagen vehicle that was attacked — alongside the corpses of terrorists at the Sde Teiman military base. It has not identified whose bodies they were — though it is known who was in the car — and does not know the fate of two others who were seen in footage being taken alive by the terrorists.
Hashim al-Birawi, Suliman al-Atar, Salah Abd al-Daib, Ismail Abu Rakba, Suheil al-Masri, Khouri al-Masri, and Ziyad Ghanam — residents of the Gazan city of Beit Lahiya and members of the same extended family — were employed in Kibbutz Nir Am’s agricultural fields, and entered Israel legally in September, staying in the Bedouin city of Rahat, according to Haaretz.
The seven were driven by Sami al-Jarjawi, a resident of the unrecognized Bedouin village of Wadi al-Na’am, to their place of work on October 7 when incoming rocket sirens sounded and the terrorists began their deadly rampage. The van came under fire from terrorists when it passed through the Sha’ar HaNegev intersection. The vehicle is seen riddled with bullets from a distance in security footage.
+972 Magazine reported in November that al-Jarjawi, al-Atar, al-Masri, and Ghanam were killed in the incident, citing footage seen by the outlet. In footage cited by Haaretz, two of the occupants, who remain unidentified, could be seen being taken by terrorists.
Security officials confirmed to Haaretz that none of the occupants have interacted with the Shin Bet security agency, nor did any return to the Gaza Strip.
תיעוד הרכב של הפועלים העזתים ב-7 באוקטובר pic.twitter.com/rlUnisbRwH
— הארץ חדשות (@haaretznewsvid) July 7, 2024
Al-Birawi’s son, who was also in Israel, tried to find his father’s body, and even gave police a DNA sample, but was unsuccessful before he was returned to Gaza, the report said. He could not be reached for comment.
In a statement to Haaretz, the Israel Defense Forces said that only the government could decide on returning the five bodies in Israeli custody to Gaza.
‘Where did they go? Where are they?’
The seven, along with four others, including Hashim al-Birawi’s younger brother, who survived the October 7 massacre, had worked in Nir Am since the 1980s, the report said.
Nabil al-Birawi, who was working on that morning, managed to hide in the fields from Hamas gunmen with his fellow laborers until they were rescued.
Their boss, Ofer Lieberman, told Haaretz that the Palestinians were “good friends,” and would always call to ask him how he was when rockets were fired from Gaza.
However, he now suspects that Hamas threatened his workers to reveal intelligence that could be used in the attack, although the Shin Bet has said the terror group did not employ such a tactic in general.
“This is my basic assumption, and I understand that neither Hashim nor anyone else would tell me this. Something big happened here, and there are things here that just aren’t right,” he was quoted as saying.
Lieberman said he gave the names of those he knew were on their way to work to the authorities, but also has received no answers.
“Where did they go? Where are they? What is happening to them?” he wondered. “How did they return Sami’s body and not the others? Someone needs to know. They didn’t have weapons, they saw they were laborers.”
The body of Sami al-Jarjawi, the Israeli citizen driver, was returned to his family for burial.
Around 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists broke through the border on October 7, murdering some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages while committing brutal atrocities, and sparking the ongoing nine-month war with Israel.
