The bodies of three Israeli hostages were rescued from inside the Gaza Strip in a military operation that took over a day, the Israeli army announced on Friday.
Shani Louk, 22, Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 53, were taken from the Nova festival on October 7 during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.
Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said the three were found in tunnels that run deep underground across the Gaza Strip, with reports indicating that they were retrieved from northern Gaza during a special operation carried out by Israeli military and security services that began Thursday and took more than a day to complete.
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“The bodies were rescued based on precise intelligence obtained during interrogations,” the military said.
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Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called the news “heartbreaking”.
“My wife Sara and I grieve with the families; all of our hearts are with them in their hour of heavy sorrow. We will return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased alike,” he said in a statement.
Israel has been conducting heavy airstrikes and undertaking face-to-face combat with Hamas fighters in the Zeitoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia neighbourhoods of northern Gaza over the past week after the militant group returned to areas previously thought to have been “dismantled”.
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The bodies underwent identification on their return to Israel by medical officials. Their families have been notified.
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While it was known that Louk, a German-Israeli tattoo artist, was killed at the Nova festival, both Buskila and Gelerenter were thought to have been taken alive. The military revealed on Friday that all three were killed at the rave and their bodies carried into Gaza the same day.
Louk’s mother, Ricarda, previously told The Times that she was waiting for her daughter’s body to be returned so that she could have closure. Louk became one of the most identifiable casualties of the October 7 massacre after a video showing her body being paraded on the back of a truck on the streets of Gaza was circulated on social media.
“Worst of all would be that all the hostages come back and she wouldn’t be one of them, and we would wonder all our lives where she is and what happened to her without knowing, maybe ever. That would be our worst nightmare we can think of,” Louk said.
Out of some 240 people taken hostage, about 130 were thought to remain in the hands of Hamas after a hostage release deal in late November saw many of them freed. As the days pass, concerns are growing for the survival of the remainder, with the army admitting that at least 40 of the hostages have been confirmed to be dead.
On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that two Thai hostages were murdered on October 7. Their bodies are still in Gaza.
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The announcement came on the same day as Israel defended its military operation in Gaza against claims it amounts to genocide.
The International Court of Justice in the Hague in the Netherlands was holding its third round of hearings on emergency measures requested by South Africa, which has asked judges to order a ceasefire in Gaza and a halt to Israel’s incursion in the southern border city of Rafah.
The session at the court was paused for less than a minute while security guards escorted a woman from the public gallery.
The protest came as Israel’s lawyers told the court on Friday that South Africa’s case “makes a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide”.
“Armed conflict is not a synonym of genocide,” Gilad Noam, the country’s deputy attorney-general, told a panel of 15 international judges.
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On Thursday judges heard a litany of allegations against Israel from lawyers representing Pretoria, including mass graves, torture and deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.
“South Africa had hoped, when we last appeared before this court, to halt this genocidal process to preserve Palestine and its people,” Vusimuzi Madonsela, the South Africa ambassador to the Netherlands, said, referring to an earlier hearing in January.
“Instead, Israel’s genocide has continued apace and has just reached a new and horrific stage.”
South Africa’s lawyers have argued that the violence breaches the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. In a previous ruling, in January, the ICJ ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
“As the overwhelming evidence demonstrates, the very manner in which Israel is pursuing its military operations in Rafah, and elsewhere in Gaza, is itself genocidal,” South Africa said in its submission. “It must be ordered to stop.”
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South Africa is asking the ICJ for three emergency orders: for Israel to immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive in Rafah; to take all effective measures to allow unimpeded access to Gaza for humanitarian aid workers, journalists and investigators; and to ensure Israel reports back on the measures taken.
Israel has previously described South Africa’s case as wholly unfounded and “morally repugnant”.
Trucks have started to deliver humanitarian aid via a new US-built floating pier into the Gaza Strip which was towed into place from Ashdod port in Israel about 30 miles away.
Gaza’s land borders are all controlled by Israel, including the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which was taken over last week. Imports of food and medicines have been limited.
President Biden announced the pier in his State of the Union speech in March in an attempt to stave off the humanitarian crisis that has put Gaza’s population of 2.4 million at risk of famine.
The temporary structure means aid, co-ordinated by the UN, is now being moved ashore. A ship containing donations from Britain, the US and Cyprus has been dispatched from Larnaca in Cyprus. It includes 8,400 temporary shelter kits sent by the UK.
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The humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened over the past week as fighting between Israel and Hamas has intensified, prompting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee from the north and south. According to the UN, 600,000 people have fled Rafah since the Israeli takeover of the eastern part of the city and the closure of the border crossing.
Separately, Spain denied port entry to an Israel-bound ship carrying weapons. The country’s government has been critical of the Gaza offensive.
Oscar Puente, the Spanish transport minister, said on Twitter/X that the Marianne Danica, which was carrying arms, had requested permission to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena on May 21. It was carrying nearly 27 tonnes in explosive material from India, the newspaper El Pais reported.
“This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port,” José Manuel Albares, the foreign minister, said.
