Hostages found dead. “Killed a few hours ago” –

Israel has identified the bodies of six hostages found underground in the southern Gaza Strip. Their remains were recovered on Saturday “from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of ​​the Gaza Strip” and brought back to Israel where they were formally identified, military sources said. The bodies of the hostages found by Israeli troops in the tunnels in Gaza belonged to six young people, two of them women: five of them had been kidnapped at the Nova music festival, while one of the two women had been captured in Kibbutz Beeri.

According to IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, they had been “brutally murdered by Hamas” a day or two before the raid that led to the discovery of their bodies. “They were in Rafah, about a kilometer away from the other tunnel where we rescued Farhan al-Qadi a few days ago,” Hagari said, referring to the latest hostage freed by the army.

One of the hostages found dead was a 23-year-old Israeli-American, for whom President Joe Biden himself expressed his grief. “It is tragic,” he said, “but the leaders of Hamas will pay for these crimes. And we will continue to work around the clock for an agreement that guarantees the release of the remaining hostages.” Vice President Kamala Harris also expressed her condolences to the family, calling Hamas “an evil terrorist organization” that now has “even more American blood on its hands.” In Israel, relatives of the hostages continue to accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not doing enough to save them, recalling that until a few hours ago these last 6 young people were still alive. New mass protests have been announced for this afternoon.