IDF Fears Hostages Taken by Hamas on October 7 May Never Be Found
Recent complex military operations in the Gaza Strip to recover the bodies of slain hostages have led the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to acknowledge the grim possibility that some hostages abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7 may never be found, The Times of Israel learned on Tuesday.
This assessment comes as 111 of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza nearly 300 days later, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014.
Last week, during a raid in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, the IDF’s 98th Division, along with the Shin Bet, recovered the bodies of five hostages who were killed and then kidnapped during the onslaught nearly ten months ago.
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IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said following the operation, “We were near these bodies before; we didn’t know how to reach out [and recover them]. Now that we knew how to reach out, we did so. We brought five [slain hostages], which otherwise, it’s not certain we would have ever found them.” The bodies had been buried inside a tunnel some 20 meters underground in Khan Younis.
According to the military, the bodies were hidden behind a wall in the tunnel, and without exact information on the location — provided by a detained terrorist — it was unlikely they would have been found.
Another such discovery occurred in April with the recovery of the body of hostage Elad Katzir, who had been abducted alive and later murdered by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in Gaza. His body was buried in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza at a site used by terror operatives.
The IDF assesses that as time goes on, the likelihood of obtaining intelligence on the hostages increases, but the chances of the hostages remaining alive decrease. The military said it has a vast amount of intelligence obtained during the ground operation in Gaza that it is deciphering, which may bring leads on the hostages.
