IDF retrieves bodies of 2 soldier hostages from Gaza: Nik Beizer and Ron Sherman, both 19

The IDF says forces operating in Gaza have recovered the bodies of two more Israeli hostages taken by Hamas: Cpl. Nik Beizer, 19, and Sgt. Ron Sherman, 19.

The military says it has informed the soldiers’ families and shares in their grief.

Beizer began his army service on April 30, and on October 7 was taken captive by Hamas terrorists who launched an assault on his base near the Erez Crossing.

Beizer was working at the IDF’s Gaza District Coordination and Liaison, which coordinates permits and the passage of goods through the Erez Crossing into Gaza.

“That’s the irony,” Beizer’s mother Katy Beizer said previously. “Everyone at this base is taking care of the Palestinians, working so that Gazans can live their lives.”

Beizer wasn’t supposed to be at the base that weekend but had switched with a friend who wanted the weekend off.

Sherman last spoke to his mother on the morning of October 7, when his army base near the Gaza border was attacked by Hamas terrorists.

“They got cut off,” Shalhev Kimchi, his aunt, said previously in a video made by Bring Them Home, the organization helping tell the stories of those missing following the overwhelming Hamas terrorist attacks.

When Sherman’s phone call with his mother was cut off, he switched to WhatsApp text messages.

“He told her he loves her,” said his aunt.

“That’s it, Mom, they’re here, it’s over, I love you.”

However, some four or five hours later, said Kimchi, they found Hamas videos of Sherman, “whole and healthy,” she said, but bound in the back of a pickup truck.