In a heartbreaking development, the IDF recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages from a Hamas tunnel in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The hostages, who were tragically murdered by their captors shortly before being found, have been identified as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 25.
The discovery was the result of a meticulous search operation by the IDF. They didn’t have the exact location of the hostages but had clues that led them to the general area where the six were held. The military approached the situation with extreme caution, aware of the delicate nature of the rescue mission.
Unfortunately, by the time the soldiers reached the hostages, they were already dead, killed by their captors around a day or two earlier.
The guards responsible for this atrocity had fled the scene, leaving the bodies behind. The tunnel where they were found was located about a kilometer from the spot where another hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, was rescued earlier in the week.
The bodies of the six hostages were carefully extracted overnight and brought back to Israel for identification. The IDF’s operation underscores the intense and complex nature of their efforts to locate and rescue hostages, even in the most perilous of circumstances.