Since the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7, between negotiations, releases and repatriation of bodies, 120 hostages are still held in the Palestinian enclave. Update on the situation of the captives on Tuesday June 7.
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A majority of men, a dozen women, a dozen soldiers and around forty dead bodies. This is what we know about the 120 hostages still captive in the gang Gaza in the hands of Hamas, according to a database compiled by AFP. In addition to these 120 hostages, four Israelis kidnapped before October 7, 2023 are also being held: Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed, two civilians presumed alive who entered Gaza voluntarily in 2014 and 2015, and the remains of Oron Shaoul and Hadar Goldin, soldiers killed during the 2014 Gaza war.
To date, 112 hostages have been freed: 105 during a week-long truce in late November, five previously and two in early February during an Israeli operation in Rafah. In detail, 33 minors, 49 adult women and 30 adult men, mainly Thai agricultural workers, were released. Israel also managed to repatriate 19 bodies.
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The Israeli authorities have not revealed the names of the hostages still captive, but AFP identified them, mainly thanks to its network of journalists, in regular contact with hostage families, and to the Israeli press. The findings below are based on data compiled by AFP.
79 presumed alive and 41 bodies still in Gaza
As of June 4, 79 hostages presumed alive and 41 dead bodies are still being held in Gaza, including 25 of people killed in the attack on October 7 and whose remains were taken to the Palestinian territory. Of the 79 hostages presumed alive, 72 are Israelis (including four Bedouins) or dual nationals with Israeli nationality, and seven are foreigners (six Thais and one Nepalese).
However, it is not certain that all of them are still alive. Israel still has announced Monday the death of four hostages, including three octogenarians. Their bodies are still held in Gaza. Hamas has also announced several times the deaths of hostages not confirmed by Israel, in particular that of the youngest, the infant Kfir, who would have been one year old on January 18, of his mother Shiri Bibas (32 years old) and his eldest son. brother Ariel (four years old). Apart from Kfir and Ariel, there are no more minor hostages left. The November Israel-Hamas agreement provided for their release as a priority.
Eleven soldiers, including five women
Conversely, women, the agreement’s second priority population, were not all released. Including Shiri Bibas, whose fate is uncertain, thirteen women believed to be alive are still being held in Gaza, aged 18 to 39. Five women, aged 18 or 19, are soldiers and were therefore not affected by the hostage release agreement. There are also six male soldiers aged 18 to 22. Most were doing their military service and were not career soldiers. Hamas and its allies also hold the bodies of eight soldiers and a police officer who died on October 7.
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Including the soldiers, 64 adult men believed to be alive are still hostages. Among them are fathers, whose children and wives were released during the truce, such as David Cunio, Tal Shoham, Youssef al-Zayadna and Ohad Yahalomi and Ofer Kalderon, the fathers of the Franco-Israeli teenagers Eitan, Erez and Sahar. Three septuagenarians and two octogenarians are still captive, including Oded (83 years old) and Abraham (78 years old), the husbands of Yocheved Lifshitz and Ruth Munder, released last October and November.
Of the living hostages still held, at least 26 were kidnapped from the Tribe of Nova music festival, attended by more than 3,000 people. Added to this are four bodies. Only five ravers were released alive, including the French-Israeli woman Mia Shem.
A missing person
Ten kibbutzim have residents or workers among the hostages. First and foremost Nir Oz, which still lists 22 presumed alive (38 have been released) and 13 bodies in Gaza. Beeri still lists four presumed alive and nine bodies in Gaza, Kfar Aza five presumed alive.
In addition to the hostages, a woman, Bilha Inon, is still missing, according to authorities. The resident of Netiv Haasara, a village near the Erez crossing point in the northern Gaza Strip, was initially presumed dead, but her DNA was not found. Furthermore, two people initially presumed to be hostages, Eliakim Livman and Dolev Yehud, were ultimately never held hostage. Their remains were recently found in Israel.
Israel mourns the death of four hostages kidnapped during the attack of October 7, 2023
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Sami Boukhelifa
Four dead hostages, victims of an Israeli government terrible, run by failures “, Write the Yedioth Ahronoth. “ Because repeatedly “, says the newspaper, quoting an official on condition of anonymity, ” Israel had the opportunity to free its hostages through negotiations. Their death was therefore the result of negligence. », asserts the Israeli daily. For the left-wing newspaper Haaretzthe four hostages who appeared in a video broadcast by Hamas last December, and whose disappearance we have only just learned, have “ probably killed by Israeli army fire “.
This would not be the first time that such an incident has occurred. At the same time, at the end of the year, the army killed three other hostages by mistake, recalls our correspondent in Jerusalem, Sami Boukhelifa. Since the start of the war, almost all of the hostages released have been released thanks to the agreement negotiated by foreign mediators. Only three were saved thanks to operations carried out by Israeli special forces in the Gaza Strip.