28 year old man
Israeli army identifies body of hostage
December 15, 2023, 8:47 a.m
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Israel still suspects 135 hostages are held by Hamas. The fighting in the Gaza Strip is making it difficult to reach a new deal to liberate it. Now the army has found another dead hostage and identified a 28-year-old man. He was kidnapped while attending the music festival in the Negev Desert.
Given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, Israel has recently come under increasing international pressure – including from the USA. Meanwhile, Israel continues to worry about the hostages still being held by Hamas. The military says it has recovered the body of another hostage who was kidnapped from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The dead body was returned to Israel and identified there, the army said.
Accordingly, it is the 28-year-old French-Israeli Elya Toledano, who was kidnapped by Hamas during the massacre by the Islamist Hamas and other groups in Israel and taken to Gaza. His family had been informed, it said. The army initially did not provide any information about the cause of death.
Toledano was abducted by Hamas militants on October 7th while attending a music festival in the Negev Desert with his girlfriend, French dual national Mia Shem. Shem was released at the end of November during the ceasefire between Israel and the radical Islamic group Hamas.
The army recently reported the number of people still being held in Gaza as 135. It is unclear whether the hostages who have since been declared dead are included. Israeli soldiers have already recovered several bodies in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Gaza war.
According to Israeli sources, a total of around 240 people were kidnapped in the unprecedented attack by the terrorist organization Hamas and other extremists on border towns in Israel. A total of 113 hostages were recently released as part of a deal between the Jerusalem government and Hamas. In exchange, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
Netanyahu sees the Red Cross as having a duty
“We will continue to do everything we can to bring all hostages home,” said army spokesman Hagari. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called on the Red Cross to exert more pressure to gain access to Hamas hostages. “You have every opportunity, every right and every expectation to put public pressure on Hamas,” Netanyahu said at a meeting with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric in Tel Aviv. He handed her a package of medicines and called on the ICRC to “fulfill its task and deliver them to the hostages in Gaza.”
The war between Israel and Hamas was triggered on October 7 by the Islamist Palestinian organization’s unprecedented attack on Israel. Fighters from Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU, had entered Israeli towns and villages and committed atrocities against civilians.