Israel announced the posthumous deaths of some missing individuals held in Gaza as it seeks to recover its hostages through indirect negotiations with Hamas and military operations in the territory. This step aims to assist the relatives of the hostages, who are anxious to close this chapter. A medical committee consisting of three experts is examining video footage of the attack carried out by Palestinian militants led by Hamas in southern Israel, looking for any signs of potentially fatal injuries among the captives, and comparing this with testimonies from hostages released during a week-long ceasefire in Gaza that ended on Friday.
Hagar Mizrahi, an official at the Israeli Health Ministry who heads the committee established as part of the crisis response that has now entered its third month, stated that the video footage may be sufficient to declare death, even if no doctor officially announces it based on examining the hostage's body. She added, in statements to the Israeli public broadcasting authority "Radio Kan": "Declaring death is not easy at all, and certainly not in the situation we are living in." She clarified that the committee is responding to the desire of the families of the captives in Gaza to obtain as much information as possible about their loved ones.
Among the roughly 240 individuals abducted, Hamas released 108 people in exchange for Israel's release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners, in addition to increasing humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza. Since the end of the ceasefire, Israeli authorities have announced the deaths of six civilians and a colonel in the military during the captivity. Hamas has not confirmed this information. Previously, Hamas stated that dozens of hostages had been killed in Israeli airstrikes and threatened to execute others, indicating that some hostages are in the custody of other armed Palestinian factions.
