Bodies of six Israeli hostages retrieved from Gaza, Israel says

By Dana Karni, Lex Harvey and Kara Fox, CNN

(CNN) — The bodies of six Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation in Khan Younis, Israeli authorities said Tuesday, as the latest ceasefire negotiations continue.

In a joint announcement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) named them as Yoram Metzger, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Chaim Peri, Nadav Popplewell and Yagev Buchshtab.

All but Munder had been announced dead in recent months by the Israeli military.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the IDF and ISA had entered Hamas tunnels in a “complex operation” to retrieve the bodies.

“We will continue working to achieve the goals of this war – returning the hostages to Israel and dismantling Hamas,” Gallant said on X.

A joint statement by the ISA and IDF said the operation was “enabled by precise intelligence” from the two agencies’ intelligence units, and the IDF Intelligence Directorate Hostage Headquarters.

There are currently 109 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, including 36 believed to be dead, according to data from the Israeli Government Press Office.

Munder, 79, Metzger, 80, and Peri, 80, were all residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz, near the Gaza border, where they were captured during Hamas’ October 7 attacks, according to statements from the kibbutz.

Munder was taken along with his wife, daughter and grandson, who were later freed during a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas in November. Munder’s son, Roee, was killed during the attack.

Nine-year-old Ohad Munder told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11 on Tuesday that the death of his grandfather and the other hostages “shouldn’t have happened.”

“There have already been many times when there were negotiations for (a) deal… and then they say no – and in the end they don’t want it, and always regret it at the last minute. All the hostages could have returned alive even on the first day. They could have brought back grandfather and all the other hostages,” Ohad said.

Metzger’s wife Tami was also kidnapped and later released in the November truce.

Popplewell, who was 51 when abducted, and Buchshtab, 35, were taken from Kibbutz Nirim, the kibbutz said in a statement.

In May, Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed Popplewell, a dual British-Israeli citizen, had died more than a month earlier of wounds he sustained after an Israeli airstrike hit the place where he was held. CNN was not able to independently verify the claim by Hamas.

The IDF said in July that Buchshtab was believed to have been held in Khan Younis and died several months ago, while the IDF was operating there. It did not detail the circumstances of the death at the time.

In a statement Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked those involved in the retrieval operation for their “bravery and determined action.”

“Our hearts ache for the terrible loss,” he said.

IDF to probe cause of deaths

The chief spokesperson of the IDF said Tuesday it was investigating what caused the deaths of the hostages.

Earlier on Tuesday, a report in the Israeli media had claimed that some of the fatalities may have been linked to an Israeli military operation in Khan Younis.

Israeli outlet Ynet had reported that an IDF preliminary assessment was that the hostages may have died due to suffocation after the IDF hit a nearby Hamas target and carbon dioxide flooded the tunnel where they were being held.

Asked in a news conference whether the IDF had killed the hostages, spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari referred back to a statement he made in June, when he had said the “the hostages were killed while our forces were operating in Khan Younis.”

However, he did not confirm that the hostages had been killed as a result of Israeli military action.

Hagari said the IDF would need to “find out all the details and these bodies are in Israel, they will be brought for burial but were also examined at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.”

The IDF would inform the families and the public of its findings, Hagari said.

The chief spokesperson also said the IDF would not be able to return all hostages through rescue operations, which is why Israel is active “on all channels.”

About 1,200 Israelis were killed and some 250 others kidnapped during Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 92,000 injured during Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

Ceasefire talks

The news comes as negotiations for a ceasefire continue, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying that Netanyahu agreed on Monday to a US “bridging proposal” for a deal after the pair met in Tel Aviv.

Mediators presented the bridging proposal to Israel and Hamas last week to close the remaining gaps of disagreement between both sides, a joint statement between the United States, Qatar and Egypt said.

Blinken said the next step in the ceasefire talks “is for Hamas to say yes.”

He arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for talks with top officials to “get the latest from them on what they are hearing” from Hamas, Blinken said. Further high-level negotiations are expected to resume as soon as this week in either the Egyptian or Qatari capital.

The same day, representatives of an Israeli hostage family forum said Netanyahu told them that Israel would not leave the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14-kilometer strip of land that serves as a buffer zone on the border between Egypt and Gaza, and had also appeared to cast doubt on a hostage and ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu said in the meeting that there “might not be a deal,” but the remark came in the context of Hamas potentially ruling out an agreement, the Tikva forum’s Zvika Mor, father of hostage Eitan Mor, told CNN.

Mor added that Netanyahu had insisted on maintaining Israeli control over the Philadelphi corridor, but had not committed to maintaining control over the Netzarim corridor — which intersects one of Gaza’s two main north-south roads to create a strategic, central junction.

In a statement released after the meeting, Netanyahu’s office did not directly mention either the prime minister’s reported comments regarding the Philadelphi Corridor or the possibility of no deal.

Meanwhile, Hamas rebuked US President Joe Biden’s comments about the group “backing off” from a ceasefire deal.

Speaking to reporters outside the Democratic National Convention early Tuesday, Biden said: “Israel says they can work it out, they’re prepared – but I was told Hamas is now backing off. It remains to be seen, we’re going to keep pushing.”

Hamas said in a Tuesday statement that “Biden and Blinken’s statements are misleading claims, and do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a cessation of aggression.”

“We consider these statements a renewed American green light for the government of Zionist extremists to commit more crimes against defenseless civilians, and in pursuit of the goals of exterminating and displacing our people,” it added.

Hamas has previously indicated it will not accept the latest proposal, saying on Sunday that it doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire and introduced new conditions in the prisoner exchange, among other issues.

In a statement Sunday, the militant group blamed Netanyahu for “obstructing” a deal from being reached.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said Tuesday that the recovery of hostage bodies provided “necessary closure,” and called for urgency to finalize a deal.

“The Israeli government, with the assistance of mediators, must do everything in its power to finalize the deal currently on the table,” it said in a statement.

Still, Israel’s military operation continues, with airstrikes across Gaza killing at least 40 on Tuesday, officials in the Palestinian enclave said.

At least eight people were killed and four people remain missing, according to the Gaza Civil Defense, after an Israeli airstrike targeted a school where authorities said thousands of displaced people were sheltering from violence.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told CNN most of those killed and injured in the strike on the Mustafa Hafez school were women and children and that a number of people were still under the rubble.

The IDF said in a statement that the Israeli Air Force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating within a Hamas command and control center” inside the school and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”

Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted schools used as shelters for civilians in Gaza, claiming that Hamas is operating inside the compounds.

Later Tuesday, at least nine people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to health officials at the city’s Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital.

Arwa Damon, a former CNN senior international correspondent and president and founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA), who is in central Gaza, heard the strike and saw a number of injured people while she was at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

Damon told CNN she saw two blood-covered children, a woman screaming on a stretcher, a man with a massive foot injury and a number of women wailing.

In a separate incident, at least four people were killed in a strike on a house in Khan Younis under which a makeshift phone-charging point was located, health officials at Nasser Hospital, which received the casualties, told CNN.

The phone-charging station that was hit is one of many in Gaza that sell mobile accessories and allow others to charge their phones for a fee. The stations are primarily for people who live in tents and do not have electricity.

CNN has asked the IDF for comment.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Kareem Khadder, Sarah Dean, Jennifer Hansler, Mohammed Taqfeeq and Abeer Salman contributed to this report. Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting from Gaza.