The Guipuzcoan Iván Illarramendi and his wife have been murdered by Hamas. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sources close to the young man, who lived with his wife in the Kissufim kibbutz, one of those attacked by the militiamen, have confirmed the death of the 46-year-old young man, a native of Zarautz and about whom there was no news. since the massacre of last October 7.
The circumstances of death are unclear. The information is still scarce, but some media aware of the investigation advance that Iván Illarramendi, 46, could have been murdered by the jihadists without even entering Gazan soil, which would indicate that he would not have been a captive of the organization. Apparently, this is the first hypothesis that the Israeli authorities are working with and that is confirmed by their embassy in Spain, which this afternoon published a tweet expressing its condolences for the “brutal murder” of Ivan and Dapna, whose bodies have just been identified by forensics.
At first it had not been ruled out that the couple had died during the attacks on Hamas’ underground infrastructure in Gaza. It is assumed that many, or all, of the 240 hostages captured by the militia remain in these shelters, which this weekend circulated the information that at least 60 of them had perished due to the collapse of dozens of kilometers of tunnels in the bombings. Israelis.
The couple’s family has repeatedly stated that they preferred to consider them “disappeared” and not “kidnapped” and they never received “proof of life.”
The confirmation of Ivan’s death would be the result of the intense work carried out by the Tel Aviv forensic experts, who these days are reporting dozens of identifications based on remains that the emergency services have found or continue to locate at the scene of the massacre. Of the 1,400 killed in that massive attack on October 7, about 400 are still listed as missing. At the National Forensic Research Center in the Israeli capital, bone and tissue remains from thousands of remains that remain in the warehouse continue to be analyzed daily. Given the violence used in the crimes and the fact that numerous bodies were burned by the terrorists themselves, investigations are progressing slowly. This is what happened in the case of the man from Zarautz and his wife, whose bodies were burned.
It so happens that in the last list of hostages managed by the Government of Israel, no captive of Spanish origin had appeared for hours, specifically since last Tuesday night, as this newspaper has verified, which had awakened and the alarms among those familiar with this type of negotiations with captives. It is possible, therefore, that the identification of Illarramendi’s remains occurred on Tuesday afternoon and had been communicated to the Israeli authorities.
Iván Illarramendi Saizar disappeared on the day of the massacre along with his wife, who had Chilean nationality and Israeli roots. The two lived in Kibbutz Kissufin, just two kilometers from the Gaza Strip. Dafna’s family had been in Israel for 30 years.
The last news of both occurred on the same day of the attack. His parents reported that someone was trying to break into their home and they decided to hide in a safe room in the house. However, Israeli forces did not later locate them in the house and no evidence was found that they had been murdered, which is why they were considered Hamas hostages. However, according to the first reports released this morning, they did not reach Gazan territory.
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