Undated handout pictures provided on 20 August 2024 by The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, representing families of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza. From left to right – top row: Yagev Buchshtab, Chaim Peri and Yoram Metzger. Bottom row: Nadav Popplewell, Abraham Munder and Alex Dancyg. (Hostages Families Forum Headquarters / AFP/Graphic: News24)

• The Israeli army said it retrieved the bodies of sixhostages from Khan Yunis in Gaza.
• The retrieval followed intelligence and forensicanalysis, the army said.
• Israel said the recovery of the bodies would bringclosure to the families of the deceased.

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The Israeli army said on Tuesday it retrieved the bodies ofsix hostages from Gaza’s southern area of Khan Yunis in a joint operation withinternal security agency Shin Bet.

The hostages were Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, YoramMetzger, Nadav Popplewell, Chaim Perry, previously announced dead, and AvrahamMunder, whose kibbutz of Nir Oz near Gaza announced his death earlier Tuesday.

Following intelligence and forensic analysis, the familiesof the dead hostages have been informed, the military said in a statement,without giving details of the operation in Khan Yunis.

The recovery of the bodies “provides their familieswith necessary closure and grants eternal rest to the murdered,” campaigngroup the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

The forum called on the Israeli government to ensure thatthe remaining hostages are also returned to Israel in a negotiated deal.

It said:

Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States are urgingIsrael and Hamas to agree a ceasefire deal that would help secure the releaseof remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israelijails.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli kibbutz Nir Oz announced thedeath of Munder, 79.

“Kibbutz Nir Oz announces with great sadness the murderof the late Avraham Munder, 79, in captivity in Gaza after suffering physicaland mental torture for months,” the community said in a statement.

Among the six bodies released Tuesday, Metzger, Perry andDancyg also hailed from Nir Oz, a community near Gaza that was particularlyhard hit by the 7 October attack by Hamas on southern Israel.

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Palestinian militants abducted Munder, his wife, daughterand grandson that day.

The other family members were released during the single,week-long truce of the war last November, while his son was killed on the dayof the attack.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1 199 people inIsrael, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeliofficial figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are stillbeing held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says aredead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40 139Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry,which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Most of the dead in Gaza are women and children according tothe UN human rights office.