Israel recovers the bodies of six hostages in the Gaza Strip | El Diario Vasco

The Israeli army announced on Sunday the recovery of the bodies of six hostages captured by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where a polio vaccination campaign has begun. The remains of the hostages were found the previous day “in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area,” in the south of the Palestinian territory, and “transferred to Israel where they were formally identified,” they said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden had earlier said that among the bodies recovered was that of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The 23-year-old was one of 251 hostages taken by Hamas militants in their October 7 attack in southern Israel, which sparked the current war in the Gaza Strip.

The five other hostages were identified by the Israeli military as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Sergeant Ori Danino. Around a hundred of them are still held captive in the besieged Palestinian territory. The parents of Goldberg-Polin, who was taken prisoner during the Supernova music festival, addressed delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month.

On Thursday, the couple joined other hostage relatives gathering near the Gaza border. “Hersh! I’m mommy … I love you, stay strong, survive,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin shouted into a microphone. The recovery of the hostages’ bodies comes as Israel extends the conflict in Gaza into the West Bank, having launched a major operation on Wednesday, with bombings and armored vehicle raids in Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, Tulkarem, and in refugee camps, where armed groups fighting Israel have a strong presence.

“It’s hard, it’s very hard for the children and everyone is scared, we are terrified, look at the destruction,” said Faiza Abu Jaafar, an 82-year-old woman living in Jenin in the West Bank. “We are living through dark days.” Israeli military raids are common in the West Bank, but it is unusual for them to take place in several cities simultaneously. “I think this is the worst day since the raid began. We hear clashes and sometimes loud explosions,” said Wisam Bakr, director of Jenin’s public hospital.

The Israeli army announced its first casualty since the start of the operation on Saturday, saying it had killed two Palestinians who were planning to carry out bomb attacks near Israeli settler settlements in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 22 of its citizens have been killed in the West Bank since Wednesday.

In Gaza, despite the ravages of the war between Israeli forces and Hamas, a polio vaccination campaign has begun. The World Health Organization said Israel has agreed to implement “humanitarian pauses” of at least three days in several parts of Gaza, to facilitate a vaccination campaign. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified that this does not constitute “a ceasefire.”

Parents of children who received the first dose of two drops – two doses a month apart are needed – said they feared epidemics. Aid Abu Taha, 33, brought his 11-month-old son. “I came because I am very scared for him,” he said, referring to a disease that can cause deformities and paralysis and even death. The aim is to immunise more than 640,000 children under the age of 10.

Catastrophic humanitarian situation

Meanwhile, the war in Gaza continues with Israeli bombings on Saturday in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north. Using cellphones as their lights, rescuers carried the wounded to ambulances. Others searched for missing people in the rubble. The war in Gaza, which has plunged the 2.4 million inhabitants of the territory into a catastrophic humanitarian situation, began on October 7.

That day, Hamas Islamist militants killed 1,199 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel, according to a tally based on official Israeli figures. In response, they vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a vast retaliatory offensive that has already killed 40,691 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.