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Israeli hostages likely executed in captivity, bodies return with bullet holes

Some of the bodies of six Israeli hostages returned from Gaza recently reveal evidence suggesting the six were shot and killed by their captors after being taken hostage and moved to the Gaza Strip.

By World Israel News Staff

At least some of the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from the Gaza Strip recently may have been murdered by their captors while they were being held by the Hamas terror organization, the IDF revealed to the bereaved families of the victims.

This week, IDF forces operating in Khan Yunis recovered the remains of Alex Dancyg, 75, Yagev Buchshtav, 35, Chaim Peri, 79, Yoram Metzger, 80, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Avraham Munder, 78.

Relying on information collected by the Shin Bet internal security agency, Israeli from the elite Yahalom special engineering unit soldiers found the bodies in a hidden tunnel in the southern Gaza city.

All six of the men were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Nir Oz, which are both adjacent to the Gaza border.

On Thursday, Israel National News reported that the IDF had informed some of the six hostages’ families that forensic examinations of the bodies had revealed bullet wounds which suggested the victims were shot in captivity, and had not died as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas positions.

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The Israeli military estimates that some of the six hostages were likely murdered in captivity, after having been brought to Gaza from Nirim and Nir Oz alive, while others were in fact killed as a result of IDF airstrikes.

In a statement released Thursday, an IDF spokesman said that the estimates were based on “an identification process carried out at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, together with the Israel Police and the hostages unit in the Manpower Directorate, which is in charge of supporting the families of the hostages.”