SOME of the six Israeli hostages recently shot dead in Gaza tried to fend off their Hamas killers and protect each other before they died, the Israeli army has revealed.
An investigation into their deaths details the brutal conditions they faced as they spent almost a year in a Gaza tunnel with little food or air.
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Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari has been meeting with the families of the hostages, sharing the last moments of their loved ones lives, according to the Times of Israel which cites a Channel 12 report.
A statement from the army read: “Several of the six are assessed to have defended themselves and struggled with those who shot them”.
Meanwhile state broadcaster Channel 13 said “forensic” findings show the four men, Hersh, Ori, Alex and Almog, “defended Eden and Carmel” in their final moments.
The group, aged 23 to 40, were kept in a small, narrow tunnel that was too low for them to stand completely upright in, according to the report.
READ MORE ON ISRAEL HAMAS WAR
They had trouble breathing without any air vents in the tunnel and lived for over 10 months without a toilet or shower.
And they reportedly washed with the same water they drank from out of bottles given to them by their Hamas captors.
The IDF found protein bars in the tunnel but concluded that the hostages were given very little food.
Eden Yerushalmi weighed just 36kg, or 80lbs, by the time she was killed.
The tunnel had a generator and a small, faulty torch as well as a chess set, notepads and pens used by the hostages.
Their notebooks have been passed onto the families.
One of the families told Channel 12 that the hostages “did everything to survive in impossible circumstances… and in the end Hamas murdered them.
They said: “Their only demand was that the government save them, and the government failed in its mission.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were killed “in cold blood. They riddled them with bullets… They shot them in the back of the head.”
The hostages were found dead in Rafah, Gaza, on August 31.
They were discovered by the IDF inside one of Hamas’ tunnel networks just hours after they were murdered.
An autopsy carried out by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute found they had been shot multiple times from close range.
They were murdered only some 48 to 72 hours before the examination, meaning they were killed between Thursday and Friday morning before the army reached them on Saturday afternoon.
They were kidnapped during the October 7 massacre in Israel last year when Hamas stormed the border and killed 1,200 people, snatching 251 more.
Some 101 hostages remain in Gaza and Israeli officials estimate a third of them are already dead.
The discovery of the six hostages has sparked a renewed wave of fury across Israel as some half a million people took to the streets and clashed with riot police last weekend.
Marches organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum have raged against Netanyahu’s government and his handling of the war in Gaza.
They are calling for a hostage-ceasefire negotiation like the one secured in November last year which saw more than 100 captives released home to Israel.
But hopes for a deal appear to be at an all-time low with Channel 12 citing Israeli negotiators who say the chances of an agreement are “close to zero”.
Who were the six hostages killed in Gaza?
BY Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
THE SIX hostages were aged between 23 and 40 and were kept in Gaza for almost a year after their kidnap on October 7 2023.
They were: Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino.
Ori, 25; Eden, 24; Almog, 27; and Alexander, 33, were all taken from the tragic Supernova music festival.
The sixth, Carmel, 40, was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri.
Following news of the deaths, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog apologised to the families of the victims for “failing to bring them home safely”.
The family of Ms Yerushalmi said: “We share with great sorrow that our beloved Eden was murdered in Hamas captivity.”
Israel’s army said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, around a kilometre from where another hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, was rescued alive a week before.
US-citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, became one of the most well-known captives held by Hamas as his parents met with world leaders and pressed for his release.
They spoke out about the horrors of the ongoing war at the Democratic National Convention in August.
The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack.
US President Joe Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” by the news of their deaths.
Netanyahu said he had agreed to a deal brokered by the US over many months in May – and later an updated version in August.
But he said Hamas declined to accept and now they “continue to firmly refuse any offers” put on the table.
Netanyahu also said that “whoever murders hostages — does not want a deal,” after the death of the six captives.
The PM has turned down several ceasefire proposals put forward by Hamas in the last year.
He has refused to waiver on removing troops from the Philadelhpi Corridor, which borders Gaza and Egypt, and the Netzarim Corridor which splits North Gaza from the South.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu told Defence Minister Yoav Gallant he is prioritising keeping IDF troops in the Philadelhpi Corridor over saving the lives of remaining hostages in Gaza.
Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said this weekend that the Philadelphi corridor is a “red line” and that he is opposed to a withdrawal of troops from the Netzarim Corridor.
Some protesters and relatives of the hostages have argued that Netanyahu is placing his desire to win the war and own political gain above securing a deal for their release.
US officials have voiced concern over Netanyahu’s role in securing a deal and also over Hamas’ “seriousness” in coming to an agreement.
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