Nearly two weeks after Hamas’s onslaught on southern Israel, some 100 to 200 people remain unaccounted for, with bodies still being found and the actual number of hostages held captive in Gaza still unknown.
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that 203 people are known to have been taken hostage by the terror group during their devastating attacks on October 7.
Some 30 of the captives are children under the age of 16, and another 10 to 20 are over the age of 60.
The data was presented Thursday by Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, who is commanding intelligence efforts to find the abductees.
The army believes the majority of the hostages held in Gaza are alive, though several bodies were taken by Hamas terrorists, according to Alon.
Some 1,400 people were killed by Hamas terrorists during the assault, during which around 2,500 gunmen swarmed into at least 22 Israeli communities and army bases as well as a music festival, slaughtering nearly anybody they encountered and taking others hostage. The attacks turned communities into rubble and left highways and fields strewn with bodies, some of whom are only being found or identified now.
The bodies of Israelis killed in an unprecedented Hamas attack are gathered for identification at a military base in Ramla, Israel, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. (AP/Francisco Seco)
The IDF said it is still finding bodies inside the Gaza buffer zone near the border with Israel, where troops have conducted limited raids.
Most of those bodies recovered in the border area belong to terrorists, but some slain victims have been found, such as Noya Dan, a 12-year-old Israeli girl with autism, and her grandmother Carmela, 80, whose remains were located Thursday, according to Hebrew media reports.
“With the beginning of the war, I accepted responsibility over the… painful and sensitive task that touches the hearts of every Israeli citizen — locating some 200 hostages and missing that are in the hands of a murderous terror organization, and returning them home,” Alon said.
File: Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon speaks at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv on January 28, 2019. (INSS)
Alon said his mission faces several challenges but his personnel were working around the clock “to bring our people back.”
In the 13 days since, Israel has responded with an intense bombing campaign that Gaza health officials say has claimed around 3,700 lives. Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group, which rules the Strip. It says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.
Some family members of Israelis being held captive in Gaza fumed on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would allow humanitarian aid to be transferred into the territory via Egypt without any concessions for their loved ones in exchange.
After prodding by Washington, Israel said it would allow water, medicine, and food to reach southern Gaza from Egypt — supplies that have been cut off since Hamas’s massacre. Up to 20 trucks of aid are slated to enter Gaza Friday for the first time since the start of the war, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday, adding that the number would hopefully increase in the future.
File: A convoy of trucks carrying aid supplies for Gaza from Egypt waits on the main Ismailia desert road, about 300 kilometers east of the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip, on the way to the Rafah crossing on October 16, 2023. (Khaled Desouki/AFP)
A trilateral committee of Israel, the United States, and Egypt was formed to facilitate and monitor the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Cairo’s Rafah crossing, a UN official told The Times of Israel.
“The decision to allow humanitarian aid to the murderers of Gaza has caused great anger among the family members,” the Bring Them Home Now organization, formed to represent families of those kidnapped, said in a statement.
“We remind you that children, babies, women, soldiers, men and the elderly — some of whom have serious health issues, are wounded and shot — are being held underground like animals without any human conditions, and the government of Israel is treating the murderers to baklava and medicine,” the group said.
