Slain hostages struggled with their killers in final moments, IDF probe said to find
Six abductees reportedly had trouble breathing while held by Hamas in unventilated, narrow, dark tunnel where they couldn’t stand upright, had no toilet and got very little food
Several of the six Israeli hostages who were executed by their Hamas captors in Gaza some 10 days ago had attempted to fight off their killers, their families have reportedly been told by the Israel Defense Forces.
IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari has briefed some of the families of the six — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov and Carmel Gat — on the difficult conditions in which they had been held and on their courage in their final moments, according to Channel 12 and Channel 13.
Hagari, who reportedly met with the families over the past day or so, shared what Channel 12 news described as the initial findings of the army’s investigation into the incident, detailing the harsh conditions in which the six were held, and showing the families evidence from inside the tunnel where they were killed.
The IDF believes they were murdered a day or so before the IDF got to the tunnel on August 31, the report said.
“Several of the six are assessed to have defended themselves and struggled with those who shot them,” it added.
Channel 13 cited “forensic” findings that show “Hersh, Ori, Alex and Almog defended Eden and Carmel.”
The six were held in a small and very narrow tunnel, barely the width of two people and too low for them to stand fully upright, the Channel 12 report said.
There were no air vents, and the hostages had difficulty breathing, the families were reportedly told.
There were no toilets or showers in the tunnel. The hostages washed with water from the bottles they drank from.
Protein bars were found in the tunnel but the hostages had very little food and lost weight to the point where Yerushalmi had weighed just 36 kilograms (80 pounds) before she was murdered.
There was a generator and a small torch that didn’t always work, a chess set, writing implements and notepads. The IDF has given the notepads to the respective families, the Channel 12 report said.
Members of one family, who were not named, told Channel 12 that the hostages “did everything to survive in impossible circumstances… and in the end Hamas murdered them… Their only demand was that the government save them, and the government failed in its mission.”
The bodies of the six were recovered by the IDF overnight August 31-September 1. An initial autopsy on September 1 found they had been shot multiple times at close range two to three days earlier.
Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the hostages’ Hamas murderers had shot them dead “in cold blood. They riddled them with bullets… They shot them in the back of the head.”
It is believed that 97 hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
The shock assault saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
