New York.– A group representing relatives of hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel said Thursday that autopsies showed “bullets were found in the bodies” of the six captives Israeli troops recovered from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, raising questions about how they died.
The group, called the Hostage Families Forum, said autopsy results indicated the six hostages “were taken alive and executed in Hamas tunnels.”
Although an Israeli army spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Thursday that autopsies showed “suggestive bullet marks” on the bodies and stressed that it was too early to determine whether bullet wounds were the cause of death.
The autopsy reports have not been made public. The New York Times has not reviewed them and cannot confirm the results.
Four other bodies found in tunnels near the hostages, believed to be Hamas militants, did not show the same marks, the spokesman said.
Hamas blamed the deaths on Israeli airstrikes and the Israeli military has acknowledged that some of them were likely killed while conducting military operations in the area where they were found.
Some Israeli media reported that the hostages may have suffocated when the tunnel filled with toxins following an airstrike.
The revelations raise fresh questions about the circumstances of the hostages’ deaths after months of conflicting statements about some of the captives recaptured from Hamas by the Israeli military.
The forum said evidence that the hostages may have been shot “serves as further proof of the terrorists’ cruelty” and condemned the government’s failure to reach a ceasefire agreement that would have returned all the hostages and ended the fighting in Gaza.
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