Middle East Tensions
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More than 60 living hostages, and the bodies of about 35 others taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023, are still in Gaza, the Israeli authorities say.
Matthew Mpoke BiggEphrat Livni and
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The death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli military operation has raised hopes for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of the hostages Hamas and its allies are holding there.
Dozens who were abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel remain in captivity, according to the Israeli authorities. After Israel announced Mr. Sinwar’s killing on Thursday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group of hostages’ relatives, issued a statement calling for an immediate deal to free the remaining hostages, urging the Israeli government and world leaders to “leverage the military achievement into a diplomatic one.”
Here is what we know about the hostages.
More than 60 living hostages, and the bodies of about 35 others taken captive on Oct. 7, 2023, but believed to be dead, are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities.
In all, about 250 people were abducted on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials, who include in that number 37 people who were murdered in the initial attack and whose bodies were taken back to Gaza. Those taken were mainly civilians but also included military and security personnel. They were men, women and children, Israeli citizens as well as people who were citizens of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Mexico, Thailand and other countries.
In all, 12 people with U.S. citizenship were abducted to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Israeli government. Two of them, Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, were freed a few weeks later, on Oct. 20, after pressure on Hamas by the United States and Qatar. Two others were released during a cease-fire in November.
On Sept. 1, the Israeli military confirmed that six more hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack had been killed by their captors shortly before their bodies were discovered in a tunnel complex beneath Gaza. One of those hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual Israeli American citizen, had been taken from a music festival in southern Israel on the day of the attack.
The American Jewish Committee, an advocacy organization for Jewish people around the world, lists four other American hostages who are still thought to be alive in Gaza. They are Edan Alexander, 20; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36; Omer Neutra, 23; and Keith Siegel, 65. Three others are presumed dead: Itay Chen, 19; Gad Haggai, 73; and Judi Weinstein Haggai, 70.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, 117 people have been released, according to the Israeli authorities. More than 100 were freed during a one-week cease-fire at the end of November in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli detention.
In addition, eight people have been freed during Israeli military operations. In late August, a Bedouin Arab citizen of Israel was rescued after Israeli commandos found him alone in a tunnel in southern Gaza.
In the most high-profile hostage rescue, in June, soldiers and special operations police rescued four hostages from buildings in the town of Nuseirat, in central Gaza. Scores of Palestinians, including women and children, were killed during that operation, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
In December, Israeli forces mistakenly killed three hostages who had escaped from their captors and were attempting to approach them. The army said the shooting violated its rules of engagement.
Hostages who have returned from captivity in Gaza have shed some light on where they were held and what the conditions were like. Some were held in hospitals, others in apartments, a mosque and even a destroyed supermarket. Hamas has also been known to hold hostages underground in a network of tunnels. The Israeli military said that the bodies of six slain hostages, discovered on Sept. 1, were found in a tunnel.
Many hostages who have left Gaza have described being moved repeatedly during their captivity, under heavily armed guard. They reported being subjected to physical and psychological abuse.
Andrey Kozlov, 27, a Russian-Israeli citizen, provided a detailed account of his time in captivity after he was rescued by the Israeli military in June. He described being held in six locations in the first two months and being moved to an apartment in mid-December. In some places, he and the hostages he was held with had only a pail for a toilet and food was scarce.
After the rescue of Mr. Kozlov and three other captives, Dr. Itai Pessach, the head of a medical team for returning hostages, said they were malnourished. “They were all abused, punished and tortured physically and psychologically in many ways,” he said.
The Israeli military believed that the Hamas leader was using hostages as shields to protect his hiding place in tunnels beneath Gaza. The military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that Mr. Sinwar’s DNA had been found at one point in a tunnel a few hundred yards from where the bodies of the six hostages were found.
Families of the hostages feared that, if his location were discovered, more lives could be lost in an attempt to extract him. Instead, Mr. Sinwar was killed during a routine patrol near a villla in southern Gaza when a firefight broke out between the militants and Israeli soldiers, the Israeli military said, adding that no hostages were found in the area.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a London-based reporter on the Live team at The Times, which covers breaking and developing news.
Ephrat Livni is a reporter for The Times’s DealBook newsletter, based in Washington.
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Dozens of Hostages Remain in Gaza: What We Know – The New York Times
