The Israeli military has said its forces had retrieved the bodies of three hostages in an overnight operation in northern Gaza.
The bodies of Israeli hostage Chanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli Michel Nisenbaum and French-Mexican Orion Hernandez Radoux “were rescued overnight” and their families were notified after forensic identification, the military said in a statement.
Both Mr Yablonka, 42, and Mr Hernandez Radoux, 32, were abducted from a music festival when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel from Gaza on 7 October, triggering the ongoing war.
Mr Nisenbaum, a 59-year-old resident of the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, was last contacted on his way to an army base on the border to pick up his granddaughter on the day of the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under increasing domestic pressure to secure the release of remaining hostages, said in a statement this morning that “together with the Israeli people, my wife Sara and I bow our heads in deep sorrow and embrace the grieving families in their difficult time”.
Last week, Israeli forces retrieved the bodies of three other hostage from Gaza.
Chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari identified the three as Shani Louk, Amit Buskila and Yitzhak Gelernter, who he claimed “were murdered by Hamas while escaping the Nova music festival on 7 October and their bodies were taken into Gaza”.
Separately, Mr Netanyahu will soon address the US Congress, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said.
“We will soon be hosting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Capitol for a joint session of Congress,” Mr Johnson said, adding that the visit would mark “a very strong show of support to the Israeli government.”
The invitation comes after a double setback suffered by Israel this week: the recognition by three European countries of a Palestinian state and the announcement by the International Criminal Court prosecutor that he would seek arrest warrants for Mr Netanyahu as well as Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict.
The United States has been a steadfast supporter of Israel, but Democratic President Joe Biden has increasingly been pushing Mr Netanyahu to tame his operation in Gaza amid a mounting civilian death toll and threatened to halt arms supplies, a line opposed by Republicans.
The White House has voiced frustration with Israel in particular over its military operations in the Gaza city of Rafah, where more than one million people are sheltering.
Republicans have assailed Mr Biden over his arms supply threat and Johnson has accused Mr Biden of “carrying water” for Hamas.
Hamas’s unprecedented attack on 7 October resulted in the deaths of around 1,200, mostly civilians, in Israel.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 124 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
