The recovery of the bodies of six Israeli prisoners from Gaza by the Israeli military this week has increased pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the release of the remaining prisoners there.
On October 7, 239 people were captured in Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. As part of a temporary ceasefire in November, 105 prisoners were released by Hamas in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The Israeli army has since conducted operations to recover more prisoners, while three apparently escaped prisoners were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces in December as they attempted to return home.
The Israeli army said the bodies of the six people recovered on Tuesday were found during an overnight military operation in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The army said the bodies were recovered behind a false wall in a tunnel in an area previously declared a humanitarian zone.
Israel’s top military spokesman Daniel Hagari subsequently told a press conference that he was determined to bring all people held in Gaza home, adding that Israel would “not give up on any of them.”
“But we will not be able to bring them all back in the rescue operations,” Hagari said, referring to the ongoing ceasefire talks being held in Doha by mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The aim is to secure the release of prisoners, deliver more aid to Gaza and end the fighting.
What is known about the six people whose bodies were recovered on Tuesday and how many prisoners are still being held in Gaza?
How many prisoners are still being held in Gaza?
According to the Israeli military, there are still 109 prisoners in the Gaza Strip, but only 73 of them are said to be alive.
Most of them were captured by Hamas in its attacks on October 7, in which 1,139 Israelis were killed.
Who were the six people whose bodies were recovered on Tuesday?
The six prisoners were Chaim Perry, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; Avraham Munder, 79; Alexander Dancyg, 76; Nadav Popplewell, 51; and Yagev Buchshtav, 35.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the Israeli military has assumed for the past two months that Perry, Metzger, Dancyg, Popplewell and Buchshtav were dead.
Munder’s death was not known until the military announced the discovery of his body on Tuesday.
Munder was captured along with his wife Ruth, his daughter Keren and his grandson Ohad. All three were released during the temporary ceasefire in November.
As part of this deal, Metzger’s wife, who had also been captured on October 7, was also released.
Nine-year-old Ohad told Israeli public broadcaster Kan 11 on Tuesday that the deaths of his grandfather and the others “should not have happened.”
“There have been negotiations for a deal many times … and then they said no – and in the end they didn’t want it and always regretted 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.
How many of the prisoners have been released or rescued so far?
During the six-day ceasefire in November, 105 prisoners were released. Among those released from Gaza were foreign nationals, including a Filipino, a man with dual Israeli-Russian citizenship and 23 Thai nationals.
In February, the army said it had rescued two more prisoners, named Louis Har, 70, and Fernando Marman, 60, from a residential building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
During the operation to rescue the two men, 67 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were killed in massive Israeli air strikes on Rafah.
In June, the army said it had rescued four more prisoners: Noa Argamani, 25; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Zivm, 40. They had been abducted from a music festival near the Gaza border during the October 7 attacks. They were found alive in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza during a military operation that killed more than 270 Palestinians and injured 700.
How many of the prisoners are believed to have died?
The exact number of prisoners killed is unclear, but the Israeli military estimates that about a third of the prisoners still in the Gaza Strip are dead.
After the rescue mission in June, Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said some of the remaining prisoners were killed during the Israeli operation.
Last week, Abu Obeida also announced that an Israeli prisoner had been killed by a guard in Gaza and two others had been injured in a separate incident. He added that the two injured prisoners were receiving medical treatment to save their lives.
During his press conference on Tuesday, Hagari declined to comment on how many prisoners are believed to still be alive.
What do we know about the cause of death of the prisoners?
Hagari said the Israeli army was investigating the deaths of the six prisoners whose bodies were recovered on Tuesday, after Israeli news website Ynet claimed in a report that some of the deaths were caused by an Israeli operation in Khan Younis six months ago.
According to the report, the prisoners may have suffocated after the army attacked a nearby target, flooding the tunnel where they were being held with carbon dioxide.
When asked about the report, Hagari declined to confirm whether the prisoners were killed as a result of military action. He said the army would inform families and the public of its findings on the circumstances of the prisoners’ deaths in due course.
What do the Israelis say about the prisoners?
In Israel, protesters gather weekly to demand a ceasefire that would allow the remaining prisoners to return home. Another rally is planned for Saturday in Tel Aviv.
The families of the dead blame Netanyahu and his government for refusing to agree to an agreement to repatriate those still living in the Gaza Strip.
Zahiro Shahar Mor, Munder’s nephew, sharply criticized the Israeli authorities, saying they had “torpedoed” the opportunity to sign a ceasefire and bring the prisoners back sooner.
“My uncle was a war hero who dedicated his entire life to building the country. Hamas kidnapped him, but the continued neglect is in the hands of the Israeli government,” he told Reuters.
“I will not stop fighting for them to get back the people who are still alive. Otherwise, the State of Israel has no future. No one will want to live in a state that does not care for its citizens, that betrays them and abandons them.”
The Hostages Families Forum, an organization representing many of the prisoners’ families, renewed its call for the government to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas.
“The direct and full responsibility for the outcome of the negotiations lies with the Prime Minister. The incessant attempts to criticise the negotiating teams, to blame the mediators, the media, the families of the abducted and the abducted themselves – all this is pulling the wool over people’s eyes,” the group said on X on Wednesday.
“The Prime Minister bears the responsibility,” it continued.
