IDF announces bodies of 6 hostages murdered by Hamas found in Rafah tunnel

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

Hostages (clockwise from top left) Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Almog Sarusi, 25, Carmel Gat, 40, and Alex Lobanov, 32.
Hostages (clockwise from top left) Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Almog Sarusi, 25, Carmel Gat, 40, and Alex Lobanov, 32.

Overnight, the IDF recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages from a Hamas tunnel in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, who according to the military were murdered by their captors not long before they were found.

The hostages are Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 25.

According to the IDF, the six were murdered by Hamas a short while, possibly around a day or two, before troops found them.

The IDF did not have the exact location of the hostages but had indications of a general area where the six could be held. The military says it operated carefully in the area, due to the possibility that hostages were being held there.

Troops began to search a tunnel complex yesterday until they found the hostages dead in the afternoon. Overnight their bodies were extracted from Gaza and brought to Israel for identification.

The IDF says there were no clashes with Hamas terrorists inside the tunnel, and the guards who likely murdered the six fled the area.

The tunnel in which the slain hostages were found, in Rafah, is about a kilometer away from where soldiers found hostage Farhan al-Qadi earlier this week.

Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi, Danino, Lobanov, and Sarusi were abducted from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im by Hamas terrorists on October 7, while Gat was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri.

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