Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 28, 2025
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Hamas says contact lost with 2 hostages, demands IDF halt aerial activity so they can be ‘extracted’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNurit Yohanan is The Times of Israel's Palestinian and Arab world correspondent
Smoke rises from Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike, September 27, 2025. (Fathi Ibrahim/Flash90)
Hamas’s military wing announces that contact with two hostages has been lost due to “military operations and violent strikes in the Sabra and Tel al-Hawa neighborhoods of Gaza City over the past 48 hours.”
In its statement, the military wing demands that the IDF “withdraw to the south of Street Eight (one of the streets in Gaza City) and halt aerial sorties for 24 hours starting at 6 p.m. today so that attempts can be made to extract the prisoners (hostages).”
The statement’s apparent indication of the hostages’ exact location is unprecedented.
The families of the two hostages request that Israeli media do not publish their names.
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