Bodies of two hostages taken in Hamas's 7 October attack recovered, Benjamin Netanyahu says – Israel-Gaza war live
Update:
Date: 2025-06-05T07:33:56.000Z
Title: Israel PM says bodies of two hostages retrieved from Gaza
Content: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday the bodies of two Israelis killed in Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack and held in Gaza had been returned to Israel.
Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein Haggai and Gad Haggai were recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency. According to the Associated Press (AP). He said in a statement:
Together with all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the dear families. Our hearts ache for the most terrible loss. May their memory be blessed.
Kibbutz Nir Oz announced the deaths of Weinstein, 70, and Haggai, 72, in December 2023. The military said they were killed in the 7 October 2023 attack and that their bodies were recently recovered from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
The couple were taking an early morning walk near their home in kibbutz Nir Oz on the morning of 7 October 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border and rampaged through several army bases and farming communities.
In the early hours of the morning, Weinstein was able to call emergency services and let them know that she and her husband had been shot and send a message to her family.
In other developments:
A US- and Israeli-backed group operating aid sites in Gaza pushed back the reopening of its facilites set for Thursday, as the Israeli army warned that roads leading to distribution centres were 'considered combat zones'. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) closed its aid distribution centres after a string of deadly incidents near sites it operates that drew sharp condemnation from the United Nations.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 10 people in the battered Palestinian territory on Thursday as the military keeps up an intensified offensive. 'Ten martyrs so far resulting from Israeli strikes since dawn,' agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that they had targeted an area where displaced civilians were sheltering in the southern city of Khan Younis and houses in Gaza City and the central town of Deir el-Balah.
UN security council members criticised the US on Wednesday after it vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gaza, which Washington said undermined ongoing diplomacy. 'Today, the United States sent a strong message by vetoing a counterproductive UN security council resolution on Gaza targeting Israel,' secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement after Wednesday's 14 to 1 vote.
Israeli bombardment on Wednesday killed at least 48 people across the Gaza Strip, including 14 in a single strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, the civil defence agency said. A day earlier, the civil defence and the International Committee of the Red Cross said 27 people were killed when Israeli troops opened fire near a GHF site in southern Gaza. The military said the incident was under investigation.
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