Israeli forces recovered the bodies of three victims of an October 7 Hamas attack in an overnight operation in northern Gaza, the military said on Friday, further fueling concerns about the fate of the remaining hostages in Gaza. .
Israeli officials identified the three hostages as Hanan Yablonka, 42; Michelle Nissenbaum, 59; Orion Hernandez Radoux ), a dual French-Mexican citizen. Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed in the Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas and that Hamas militants returned their bodies to Gaza.
According to Israeli authorities, some 125 hostages remain in Gaza, and ceasefire negotiations aimed at securing the hostages’ release have stalled. Israel and Hamas held indirect talks for months in an attempt to reach a deal, but those talks collapsed in early May.
On Thursday, Israel’s prime minister’s office said the war cabinet had ordered its negotiating team to continue talks to reach a deal, but prospects appeared slim as Israel launched operations in Rafah, southern Gaza. The Israeli government has faced growing criticism from some of the hostages’ families, who say it has not done enough to reach a deal.
“The discovery of their bodies is a silent but firm reminder of the obligation of the State of Israel to immediately send a negotiating team with clear demands for an agreement to return all hostages home quickly,” said the Hostage Families Forum, a group representing the families of the captives.
Over the past week, Israeli soldiers and intelligence officials recovered a total of seven bodies and brought them back to Israel for burial. Among them was LaDoux’s partner, Shani Louk, a dual Israeli-German citizen who became a symbol of the brutality of Hamas attacks. Israeli authorities have not publicly announced that most of the seven hostages brought back have died.
The bodies were found in Jabaliya, where the Israeli military has been operating since early this month in an attempt to root out a renewed Hamas insurgency. Locked in an underground tunnel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly mourned the deaths of the three hostages and vowed to “do whatever we can” to bring the remaining captives home.
Nissenbaum, originally from Brazil, is a volunteer paramedic living in the Israeli city of Sderot near the Gaza border. Gen. Hagari said that on the morning of October 7, Mr. Nissenbaum set out to pick up his 4-year-old granddaughter, who was with her father at the Al-Rayim military base that came under heavy attack by Hamas. But Gen. Hagari said he failed because Palestinian militants ambushed him on the road.
Both Mr. Jablonka and Mr. Ladoux attended the Nova Tribe trance music festival near Kibbutz Reim. Palestinian militants shot dead Israeli civilians during the holiday as they tried to cross fields, flee in cars or hide in nearby bomb shelters. According to Israeli authorities, the attack killed at least 360 people.
