The Israeli military said Wednesday it had recovered the body of a hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza. <\/p>\n
Yousef Al-Ziyadnah, 53, who was kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was found dead in a tunnel in the Rafah area, a statement from the Israel Defense Forces said. <\/p>\n
The IDF said he had been \u201ckilled in captivity\u201d and confirmed that the dead bodies of <\/strong>at least two Hamas operatives were found nearby. <\/p>\n Al-Ziyadnah\u2019s body was discovered alongside evidence currently under investigation by the IDF that it says raised \u201cgrave concerns\u201d for the life of his son, Hamza Al-Ziyadnah, 23, who was also being held hostage. It did not elaborate on what that evidence was. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are currently investigating the circumstances\u201d of the death, the IDF\u2019s international spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said. <\/p>\n The Al-Ziyadnah family are part of the Bedouin Muslim-Arab community that lives in southern Israel\u2019s Negev desert. <\/p>\n Al-Ziyadnah and three of his children \u2013 Hamza, Bilal, and Aysha \u2013 were taken from Kibbutz Holit in southwest Israel, where they used to work. Bilal and Aysha were among the dozens of hostages returned in the short-lived ceasefire deal in November 2023. <\/p>\n Hamza\u2019s fate remains unknown. <\/p>\n Israeli authorities believe there are now 99 hostages being held in Gaza, most of whom were taken during Hamas\u2019 October 7, 2023, cross-border attacks, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage. <\/p>\n Of the hostages remaining in captivity in Gaza, dozens are believed to be dead. <\/p>\n Al-Ziyadnah had worked at the dairy farm of Kibbutz Holit for 17 years before he was taken hostage. He \u201cwas a man of dialogue and human connection, a pillar of strength for his family, and an influential figure in his community,\u201d the Hostages Families Forum said in a statement on Wednesday. <\/p>\n Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the Al-Ziyadnah family had \u201creceived the devastating news,\u201d and were \u201cin deep anxiety over Hamza\u2019s fate.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cTime is running out. Yousef was abducted alive! Our hostages are in immediate life-threatening danger. We must continue to do everything possible to urgently return 99 of our brothers and sisters \u2013 the living to their families and the fallen and murdered to be laid to rest in dignity,\u201d Herzog said in a statement on Wednesday. <\/p>\n The country\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his \u201cdeep sorrow,\u201d vowing to \u201ccontinue to make every effort to return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased.\u201d <\/p>\n Israel and Hamas remain in indirect talks in Qatar for a possible hostages-for-ceasefire deal. The talks have been deadlocked for months. US President-elect Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if the hostages were not released by his inauguration on January 20, \u201call hell will break out in the Middle East.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Israeli military said Wednesday it had recovered the body of a hostage from a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}