Army says it killed 2 Hamas terrorists who likely murdered 6 Israeli hostages in tunnel
Two terrorists who likely murdered six Israeli hostages in a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip last month were killed by Israeli troops, Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday.
The bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat and Almog Sarusi were recovered from Gaza early on September 1, a short time after their murders.
“A day after the murder of the hostages, forces with the 162nd Division identified two terrorists emerging from a nearby tunnel in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah, and killed them in an exchange of fire,” Hagari said in a press conference.
“After we investigated the findings from the tunnel and equipment from the terrorists, we found DNA and several items that belonged to the terrorists that we killed,” he continued.
Hagari said that the findings revealed that the two terrorists were inside the tunnel where the six hostages were murdered during the killings.
He said the military was continuing to investigate the matter.
In a statement after the IDF announcement, the family of one of the six murdered hostages, Carmel Gat, said, “Israel’s victory will not be measured by how many terrorists we eliminate, but by how many hostages we bring home.”
The family thanked IDF soldiers for “risking their lives in impossible conditions for 11 months,” and added: “It would have made no difference to Carmel if those who murdered her, or murdered her mother [Kinneret at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7], are alive or dead. She would have wanted to know that the hostages returned home alive.”
“There is no comfort in revenge,” the family adds. “The answer to Carmel’s murder is not revenge against the murderers. The answer to death is not more death; it is life. The only response to the murder of Carmel must be a deal that brings the hostages home, and prevents regional escalation, before it is too late,” the family added. “That’s the difference between us and our enemies. They sanctify death. We sanctify life.”
Israeli officials said upon recovering the bodies of the hostages that they had apparently been murdered in the previous 48 to 72 hours.
The announcement sparked mass protests across Israel demanding a deal to release the hostages.
The tunnel where the bodies were found was a narrow 120-meter-long passageway — not tall enough to stand in without bending over — that connected parts of a large underground network in the Tel Sultan neighborhood, which according to the IDF belonged to Hamas’s Rafah Brigade.
The tunnel network was one of the largest underground complexes found by the army in Gaza to date, military sources said.
The military said it did not have any concrete or real-time intelligence on the six hostages being held there in the weeks before they were murdered, but had general indications that Israeli abductees could be in the neighborhood, and therefore had operated carefully above ground and even more so underground.
The terror group has hinted that after spotting Israeli forces approaching the area, the Hamas terrorists guarding the six hostages decided to execute them. Israel also believes this is what transpired.
On August 30, the IDF discovered the tunnel shaft in a children’s room in a home that had been blocked up by Hamas.
A day later, on August 31, troops finally managed to enter the tunnel using heavy machinery, where they discovered a locked blast door — believed to have been locked by the terrorists who murdered the hostages. Later that day, the bodies of the six were found.
By early morning on September 1, they were extracted and brought to Israel for identification and burial.
Hamas kidnapped 251 people during its October 7 rampage across southern Israel, which also saw the terrorist organization kill some 1,200 individuals, most of whom were civilians.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Source » timesofisrael.com
