IDF releases footage, details from op to recover bodies of 3 hostages

The military releases footage and additional details from the operation to recover the bodies of three slain hostages from the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday.

The bodies of Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, who were all killed on October 7, were located in a tunnel in Jabaliya, the same area from which the bodies of another four hostages were recovered a week earlier.

L-R: Hostages Michel Nisenbaum, Orion Hernandez, Hanan Yablonka. Their bodies were recovered from northern Gaza’s Jabaliya in an operation announced May 24, 2024. (Courtesy)

The IDF says that troops of the 75th Armored Battalion killed a terror operative who was apparently a lookout over the area where the bodies were held. The soldiers then raided and captured the site.

A short while later, troops of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, Shin Bet agents, and special forces of the Military Intelligence Directorate entered the tunnel and located the bodies.

The bodies were extracted from the tunnel in a “complex” overnight operation, the military says.

According to the IDF, the location of the bodies was extracted from intelligence obtained in recent days by the military and Shin Bet.

The intelligence also revealed that the three were abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Mefalsim area in southern Israel on October 7, and were killed there or a short while later en route to Gaza.