The discovery of the hostages caused an outcry in Israel. Protests against the Netanyahu government intensified. Meanwhile, a huge vaccination campaign began in the Gaza Strip.
Overshadowed by the discovery of six dead hostages in the south of the Gaza Strip, a major vaccination campaign against the polio virus has been launched in the Palestinian territory. The discovery of the bodies intensified criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli trade union umbrella organization Histadrut called for a one-day protest strike on Monday, which is also expected to affect Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
According to an army spokesman, the initial assessment was that the hostages were killed by Hamas shortly before the army reached them. Another army spokesman did not initially give details about the circumstances of their deaths, but said they were killed by Hamas terrorists. Hamas, on the other hand, blamed Israeli bombing for the deaths of the hostages.
Violence also continued in the occupied West Bank: three police officers, two men and one woman, were killed in a suspected Palestinian attack near Hebron.
Mass vaccination due to fear of polio outbreak
After the first case of polio in 25 years was recently reported in the disputed coastal strip, around 640,000 children are to be immunized against the highly contagious polio virus in the coming days, according to the WHO. Two doses of the vaccine are usually administered four weeks apart.
The mass vaccination will be carried out by local health authorities, the UN Children’s Fund Unicef and the UN Relief and Works Agency UNRWA, a WHO spokeswoman said. It started on Sunday in the central Gaza Strip.
Halima Baraka, a 39-year-old mother of four, arrived at one of the vaccination centers in Deir al-Balah in the morning. “I came here to protect my children from this disease,” she said, pointing to the cramped living conditions of internally displaced people in tent camps. “The situation is miserable, we have no cleaning supplies, no healthy food for our children and there is garbage everywhere.” Diseases can easily spread among the children.
Sally Saidam from the Nuseirat refugee district also came to have four of her six children vaccinated. “We are fighting for our survival, not only because of the constant Israeli bombardments, but also because of disease, hunger and poverty.” Her message to the international community: “Enough of the death and destruction, you must help us stop this war.”
Limited breaks in fighting to enable vaccination campaign
During the vaccination campaign, which will last a good week and is to be expanded to other parts of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army wanted to observe temporary and localized breaks in fighting. According to his office, Netanyahu stressed that the planned breaks in fighting were not intended to be a ceasefire in the classic sense.
Shortly before the start of the vaccination campaign, the Israeli army announced the discovery of six dead hostages. Netanyahu accused Hamas of systematically torpedoing efforts to reach a ceasefire. “Those who murder hostages do not want a deal,” he said in a video message. Hamas has rejected several US proposals, while Israel has agreed to them. Critics in Israel, on the other hand, accuse Netanyahu of undermining the efforts to reach a ceasefire for domestic political and personal reasons.
Abducted from the Nova Music Festival to the Gaza Strip
The dead hostages are four men – Hersh Goldberg-Polin (23), Alexander Lobanov (32), Almog Sarusi (27) and Ori Danino (25) – and two women – Carmel Gat (40) and Eden Jeruschalmi (24). According to the forum of relatives of the abducted, five of them were kidnapped on October 7 from the Nova music festival in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip.
The army said the six bodies were found in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area in the south of the embattled Gaza Strip and were brought to Israel. “Our initial assessment is that they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” said Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari. A Hamas spokesman, however, said the hostages were killed in Israeli bombardment.
Another army spokesman initially did not provide any information about the exact time and circumstances of their deaths. They were killed by Hamas terrorists, but investigations are still ongoing. About a kilometer away, a 52-year-old hostage was freed alive from a tunnel on Tuesday. “We had no specific intelligence information about their whereabouts,” he said of the hostages, and spoke of “general information that hostages are being held in the area.”
“I love you, stay strong, survive!”
The parents of Goldberg-Polin, who is also a US citizen, had campaigned tirelessly for his release. Just last month, they moved participants at a US Democratic Party convention to tears with the story of their son, who had lost an arm in the kidnapping. On Thursday, they took part in a protest at the Gaza border together with other hostage relatives. “Hersh, it’s Mom,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin shouted into the Gaza Strip with a megaphone. “I love you, stay strong, survive!”
The German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, wrote on X: “We are all waking up to the terrible news that six more dead hostages have been found, killed by Hamas.” Seibert named the hostage Carmel Gat. Since the Hamas attack on Israel, the German embassy has been working alongside the family for her release. When asked, the Foreign Office did not confirm whether Carmel Gat had German citizenship.
The relative of a still missing hostage told Israeli TV station Channel 13: “If we wait until we have captured the last Hamas fighter, there will be no living hostages left to save.” The discovery of the bodies is sad proof of this. “Netanyahu can make a deal to free them. Of course it is Hamas that kidnapped and murdered the hostages, no one has any doubt about that, but the head of government can save them – but he is not doing it, he is abandoning them.”
In Tel Aviv and other places, thousands demonstrated on Saturday evening for an agreement to release those kidnapped from the Islamist Hamas.
In total, terrorists from Hamas and other groups kidnapped more than 250 people from Israel into the sealed-off coastal area during the massacre on October 7. It is not known how many of the 101 hostages remaining in Gaza are still alive.
Since the war began, the number of Palestinians killed in the coastal strip has risen to more than 40,700, according to Gaza authorities. The number does not distinguish between fighters and civilians and is difficult to verify.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
