Middle East crisis live: Israeli military says bodies of six hostages recovered in Gaza

Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not rest until it catches those responsible for the killing of six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Israeli prime minister said that Israel was committed to achieving a deal to release remaining hostages and ensure Israel’s security.

“Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” Netanyahu said.

A major impasse in the negotiations has been the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. Netanyahu has insisted that Israel retain control of the corridors to prevent smuggling and catch militant fighters. Hamas is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has shared his condolences with the families of the six hostages found dead by Israeli forces in southern Gaza, and the three police officers killed near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron this morning. He denied claims that the hostages were killed “by the Israeli government” (Hamas said earlier that the six hostages were killed by Israeli “fire and bombing”).

In a statement on X, Ben-Gvir wrote:

We send our condolences to the families of the abductees who were murdered in Gaza, and to the families of those murdered in the Tarkumiya attack. Personally, these are heroic policemen, some of whom I knew – my holy brothers.

Unfortunately, I see the disturbing statements from the left, which accuse the Israeli government of murdering the abductees. To be clear: the terrorist organization Hamas, it and only it, murdered the abductees. Those who place the blame on the Israeli government echo Hamas propaganda.

A senior Hamas official said that some of the six hostages who were killed had been “approved” for release in the event of a truce deal, which has yet to be finalised despite months of mediation efforts, according to reports.

“Some of the names of the captives announced as found by the (Israeli) occupier… were part of the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved” in a proposed exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, the official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Hamas official said the six hostages were “killed by the occupation’s fire and bombing”, an accusation denied by the Israeli military.

Reports in the Israeli press quoted officials as saying that three of the hostages whose bodies were found on Saturday – Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Carmel Gat— would have been released in the first phase of the ceasefire deal under negotiation.

Israeli forces have detained at least 36 Palestinian people from the occupied West Bank over the past day, including a journalist, four female students from Hebron, and several former prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Authority of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said. The majority of the detentions were reported to have taken place in Hebron.

The occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza, has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war last year, and a major crackdown by Israeli security forces, which have made thousands of arrests.

At least 40,738 Palestinian people have been killed and 94,154 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The ministry has said thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.

Israel has confirmed the deaths of six hostages taken in the 7 October attack by Hamas.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing. “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” he said.

Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible. “Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he said. The Israeli prime minister told Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.

Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire agreement, was to blame for the deaths.

The news of the discovery of the bodies brought calls for a mass protest from a hostage family organisation, which blamed Netanyahu for failing to agree a hostage-for-peace deal with Hamas. The forum of hostage families called for a massive protest on Sunday, demanding a “complete halt of the country” to push for the implementation of a hostage release deal.

Israeli forces are continuing their offensive on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and its refugee camp for the fifth consecutive day, according to reports. Since the beginning of the offensive last Wednesday, 14 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign, with dozens more injured or detained, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.

Three Israeli police officers were killed after their vehicle was shot at near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli authorities.

Palestinian health authorities and UN agencies have began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory. Israel has agreed to limited pauses in fighting to facilitate the campaign, according to the World Health Organization. But despite this pledge, there are reports of Israel continuing to launch airstrikes on Gaza.

The Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Simon Harris has issued a statement onthe deaths of six hostages taken in the 7 October attack by Hamas. He described the news as “heartbreaking” and said it was an “outrage” that was the latest atrocity “in a year of bloody inhumanity”. Harris, from the centre-right Fine Gael, reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire.

His full statement reads:

The news from Israel on the deaths of six hostages is heartbreaking and an outrage.

These innocent people were abducted and held by Hamas for nearly 11 months. Reports they were murdered in recent days are sickening.

This is the latest outrage and atrocity in a year of bloody inhumanity. This violence and death cannot continue and every life that can be saved, must be saved.

We need an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Ireland calls on Hamas and the Netanyahu government to make this a reality.

All remaining hostages should be returned to their families and aid needs to flow freely to Gaza before the humanitarian catastrophe deepens.

Ireland’s solidarity and sympathy are today with the families and the communities of the six innocent hostages confirmed dead. May their memories be a blessing.

Here are some images of the massive polio vaccination campaign under way for children in Gaza:

We have some more comments from Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent statement. In it, he vowed to “settle the score” with Hamas after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Gaza tunnel yesterday.

The Israeli prime minister told Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.

Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier on Sunday near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

“We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. Just this morning, he murdered three policemen in Hebron,” he said, referring to Hamas.

“The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so.”

Hamas has not claimed the attack in the West Bank, but in a statement called it a “heroic operation by the resistance”.

Three police officers, two men and a woman, were killed early Sunday in a shooting attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron, police said. The Israeli military said the attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint.

Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has called for a strike to shut down the country’s economy in order to pressure the government to reach a deal to release the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Lapid, who is also a former prime minister, called on every Israeli “whose heart was broken this morning” to join a major protest in Tel Aviv later in the day. He also called on Israel’s main labour union, businesses and municipalities to go on strike.

In a statement, the Yesh Atid party chief calls on “the Histadrut and the employers and the local authorities to shut down the economy,” arguing that “the country is collapsing” and “cannot go on like this.”

“I call on every citizen whose heart is broken this morning to come at seven [in the evening] to Begin [Road in Tel Aviv] to demonstrate with us,” the Yesh Atid party said.

His comments came after Israel recovered the bodies of six more hostages from captivity in Gaza. The discovery of the six bodies in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area leaves about 100 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza. The IDF has confirmed 35 of them are known to have died since October.

As we reported in an earlier post, Palestinian health authorities and UN agencies have began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory.

Authorities plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving on to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the strip. The campaign began with a small number of vaccinations on Saturday and aims to reach about 640,000 children.

Israel has agreed to limited pauses in fighting to facilitate the campaign, according to the World Health Organization. But despite this pledge, there are reports of Israel continuing to launch airstrikes on Gaza. Four Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed and several others were injured this morning in a series of Israeli airstrikes across Gaza City and the Bureij refugee camp, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said the series of three-day “humanitarian pauses” in northern, southern and central areas Israel has agreed to were not amounting to any kind of ceasefire in the war generally.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of Unwra, said: “For this to work, parties to the conflict must respect the temporary area pauses. For the sake of children across the region a lasting ceasefire is overdue.”

The vaccination campaign officially began on Sunday in three health centres in central Gaza, a day after an unspecified number of children were vaccinated in the southern area of the Gaza Strip.

Children aged from one-day-old to 10 years arrived at the centres to receive the dose as drones flew overhead, Yasser Shaabane, medical director of Al-Awda hospital in central Gaza, said, according to AFP.

The vaccination campaign comes after a case was discovered last month for the first time in 25 years after doctors concluded a 10-month-old had been partially paralysed by a mutated strain of the polio virus after not being vaccinated due to the war.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not rest until it catches those responsible for the killing of six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Israeli prime minister said that Israel was committed to achieving a deal to release remaining hostages and ensure Israel’s security.

“Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” Netanyahu said.

A major impasse in the negotiations has been the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. Netanyahu has insisted that Israel retain control of the corridors to prevent smuggling and catch militant fighters. Hamas is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Israeli police said the three people killed in Sunday’s shooting attack in the occupied West Bank were members of their police force (see earlier post at 07.38).

“Three members of the police force were killed this morning in a shooting attack,” Ouzi Levy, chief of the Israeli police in the West Bank, told reporters at the scene of the attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron.

Two of the officers were declared dead at the scene, while the third officer was taken to hospital by helicopter but later died, BBC News reports.

Israeli forces are continuing their offensive on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and its refugee camp for the fifth consecutive day, according to reports.

This report is from Wafa, the Palestinian news agency. The claims in it have not yet been independently verified by the Guardian:

On the fifth day of the ongoing military attack, Israeli troops embarked on destroying streets and commercial shops in the downtown area of Jenin for the first time.

Wafa correspondent reported that Israeli bulldozers began demolishing shops in the al-Barid Street and the Cinema Square in the Jenin city center.

Since the beginning of the offensive last Wednesday, the aggressive Israeli military campaign has resulted in the murder of 14 Palestinians, with dozens more injured or detained.

The ongoing assault has caused extensive damage to civilian properties, public and private facilities, and critical infrastructure, including water and electricity networks.

The city and its refugee camp remain under a stringent blockade imposed by Israeli forces, who have reinforced their military presence in the area.

The military campaign across the West Bank, according to Israeli leaders, is designed to pre-empt attacks on Israelis after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month.

Hamas has said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire deal, was responsible for the deaths of the six people held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”

Key sticking points in the negotiation talks include an Israeli presence in the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5-km-long (9-mile-long) stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

Sources have also told Reuters that Israel has expressed reservations on several of the Palestinian detainees Hamas is demanding the release of.

The Hostages Families Forum, a group representing the families of those held hostage in Gaza, said that all six held captive were “murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity”.

“The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” they said, as they demanded that Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, address the nation “and take responsibility for abandoning the hostages”.

The news of the discovery of the bodies brought calls for a mass protest. “Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. The country will grind to a halt. The abandonment is over,” the forum was quoted as saying in a statement issued yesterday. Netanyahu has been blamed for failing to agree a hostage-for-peace deal with Hamas that has been under negotiation for several months. You can read more on this story here.

 

Updated: September 1, 2024 — 6:25 am

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