Israeli troops have recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza and the army is determining whether another set of remains are those of the man’s son, the army said on Wednesday.
The discovery of Yosef alZaydani’s body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire agreement that would free the remaining hostages and stop fighting in Gaza. Israel says about a third of the 100 remaining hostages have died, but as many as half may be dead.
Before Wednesday’s announcement, Yosef and his son Hamza AlZaydani were believed to be still alive, and news of their fate could increase pressure on Israel to move forward with the deal.
The army said it had found evidence in the tunnel that raises “serious concerns” for the life of 23-year-old Hamza Alzaydani, suggesting he may have died in captivity. Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said that the circumstances behind Yosef Alzaydani’s death were being investigated.
Al-Zaydani and his three children were among 250 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants after attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people.
The Hostage Families Forum, a group representing relatives of hostages, said AlZaydani had a total of 19 children and had worked for 17 years on a dairy farm in the kibbutz, which was one of the communities attacked. AlZaydani’s teenage children, Bilal and Aisha, were released along with about 100 hostages in a week-long ceasefire in November 2023.
The bodies of about three dozen hostages have been recovered in Gaza and eight hostages have been rescued by the army.
The Hostage Families Forum said the ceasefire agreement being negotiated “comes too late for Yosef – who was captured alive and should have been returned as such.”
“Every day in captivity poses an immediate lethal threat to the hostages,” the group said in a statement. There were mass protests in Israel demanding a settlement following the deaths of previous high-profile hostages.
Yosef AlZayedani’s name appeared on a list of 34 hostages shared with The Associated Press by a Hamas official earlier this week who the terrorist group said were to be released. Israel said this was the list it submitted to mediators last July and that it had not received anything from Hamas.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas is “very close”, and he hopes “we can get it done” before handing over US diplomacy to President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. Can”. month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed sadness at the news of Alzaydani’s death and said in a statement that he had “hoped to return four family members from Hamas captivity and they did.”
The Alzaydani family are members of the Bedouin community, part of Israel’s Palestinian minority, who hold Israeli citizenship. The traditionally nomadic community is particularly poor in Israel and suffers from neglect and marginalization. Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel’s population of 10 million, and millions more live under Israeli military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Eight members of Israel’s Bedouin minority were abducted in the October 2023 attacks.
“We hoped to bring him back alive,” said Talal Alkernawi, mayor of Rahat city. “Instead of returning them alive to their families, raising their children, we receive them dead.”
Many families fear that as long as the war in Gaza continues, the fate of their loved ones will be at risk. Israeli forces are stepping up their air and ground war against Hamas, and Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including three infants – among them a week-old baby. And two women are involved. The Israeli military says it only targets terrorists and accuses them of hiding among civilians.
Gaza health officials say at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli counterattacks, more than half of them women and children, while Israel says thousands of Hamas fighters are among the dead.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, and other Western countries.