From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Hamas member to be indicted for allegedly holding body of Israeli hostage in a fridge in Gaza for a decade
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State prosecutors will file charges this week against the Hamas operative who allegedly held the body of slain soldier Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul for nearly a decade, the Shin Bet and Israel Police announce.
Ibrahim Hilu, a former Hamas commander who fought in the terror group’s Shati Battalion, will be charged Thursday with “severe security offenses” in the Beersheba District Court, the agencies say.
Shaul was killed in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood during the 2014 Gaza War, when the armored personnel carrier he was traveling in came under fire from anti-tank missiles launched by Hamas.
His body was dragged away from the scene by Hamas operatives and subsequently held in Gaza for over a decade.
Israeli forces engineered the recovery of Shaul’s remains in a clandestine operation in January 2025.
Hilu, a Hamas commander turned shopkeeper, allegedly kept Shaul’s body in a refrigerator in one of three shops under his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Ynet reported in January.
After capturing and interrogating Hilu, the Shin Bet and IDF Military Intelligence Directorate enlisted a Palestinian informant to break into his home and retrieve Shaul’s body from the locked fridge.
The informant extracted the body, wrapped it in a rug, and carried it for 1.5 kilometers (roughly one mile) to IDF forces awaiting him, per the report.
The Times of Israel Community.