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The Israeli navy mentioned on Saturday that it had recovered the physique of an Israeli hostage who was kidnapped through the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault, virtually six months after he was taken hostage.
The man, recognized as Elad Katzir, 47, was a farmer in Nir Oz, a kibbutz close to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip that was one of many areas hardest hit within the assault on Oct. 7, wherein 1,200 Israelis died and about 250 individuals had been taken hostage, in keeping with the Israeli authorities. His physique was recovered by troops in Khan Younis, a metropolis in southern Gaza the place the Israeli military has been working since December, and returned to Israel in a single day, the navy mentioned.
After the announcement of the restoration and return of Mr. Katzir’s physique, Mr. Katzir’s sister, Carmit, bitterly denounced the Israeli authorities in a social media publish for failing to safe her brother’s launch.
“He might have been saved if there had been a deal in time,” she wrote. “But our management are cowards, motivated by political issues, and thus it didn’t occur.
“Your story shouldn’t have ended like this,” she wrote to her brother. “I’m sorry we couldn’t prevent. I really like you without end.”
Mr. Katzir was killed in mid-January, an Israeli navy official advised a press briefing on Saturday, whereas being held in Gaza by a militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Around 8 p.m. on Friday evening, the official mentioned, Israeli forces arrived in southern Khan Younis, remoted the realm and excavated his physique from the place he was buried underground.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2009, after Palestinian rocket assaults led to a lethal three-week Israeli offensive in opposition to Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Katzir mentioned that he felt a nagging unease in Nir Oz, the place he was born.
“I don’t really feel any victory,” Mr. Katzir mentioned on the time, when the preventing had ended with a shaky cease-fire. “I nonetheless don’t really feel secure.”
On Oct. 7, Mr. Katzir despatched voice messages to a neighborhood WhatsApp group supposed for emergencies: There had been terrorists within the kibbutz, he mentioned, and so they had been transferring from home to deal with. “We need assistance as quickly as attainable.”. No such assist was forthcoming because the Israeli navy struggled to regain management of cities and main junctions close to Gaza.
Islamic Jihad launched at the very least two movies of Mr. Katzir throughout his captivity. In the final, in early January, he mentioned he had been held for greater than 90 days and described listening to on the radio of the loss of life of an in depth good friend from Nir Oz.
The restoration of Mr. Katzir’s physique added one other tragic chapter to a grim saga for each the residents of Nir Oz and the Katzir household. On Oct. 7, over 1 / 4 of the greater than 400 residents of Nir Oz, had been both killed or kidnapped within the assault, amongst them Mr. Katzir’s father, Avraham, who was killed, and his mom, Hanna, who was taken hostage, in keeping with the Israeli navy.
Hanna Katzir, 76, was launched in November as a part of a short cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, wherein greater than 100 hostages had been returned. Her reappearance shocked a few of her members of the family, as a result of Palestinian Islamic Jihad had earlier claimed that she was dead.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has resisted more and more pressing pleas from President Biden and different world leaders to conform to a cease-fire to facilitate the return of the hostages, insisting that solely continued “navy strain” on Hamas will drive the group to return to the desk.
His recalcitrance has infuriated the households of lots of the hostages who, fearing that their family members may very well be killed by their captors or by errant Israeli hearth, have demanded extra instant motion.
In a vigil within the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, the households of a number of hostages households mentioned the Israeli authorities was working out of time to avoid wasting their family members from Mr. Katzir’s destiny. “Spare the opposite households the bitter information obtained by the Katzir household, and provides us the one joyful message we now have been eager for these previous six months,” mentioned Nissim Kalderon, whose brother Ofer was additionally kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct 7.
“Make the choice and convey them dwelling,” he mentioned.
Palestinian militants nonetheless maintain about 100 residing hostages within the enclave, the Israeli authorities say, and greater than 30 others are actually presumed dead.
Over the previous a number of weeks, Israel and Hamas have resumed oblique negotiations over a attainable cease-fire and the discharge of at the very least some hostages. In an announcement on Telegram on Saturday, Hamas mentioned {that a} delegation of its management would journey to Cairo on Sunday for additional negotiations.
On Friday, President Biden despatched messages to the leaders of Egypt and Qatar — who act as intermediaries between Hamas and Israel — urging them to extend strain on Hamas to make a deal. He has pressed Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to do the identical.
After Israeli drone strikes this week killed six overseas nationals and a Palestinian working for the charity group World Central Kitchen, the Biden administration threatened “coverage adjustments” except Mr. Netanyahu took instant steps to alleviate the starvation disaster in Gaza and to higher shield civilians and support employees.
In the six months because the Oct. 7 assault, greater than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in keeping with the Gaza Health Ministry, and lots of who stay alive are determined for support and meals as famine looms over Gaza’s inhabitants.
In response to Washington’s prodding, the Israeli authorities mentioned on Friday that it will enable the “non permanent supply” of support by the port of Ashdod in Israel and the Erez crossing, a checkpoint between Israel and northern Gaza. But it didn’t say when these new routes would open or how a lot support might cross by them. COGAT, the Israeli company that supervises support deliveries into Gaza, didn’t reply to questions.
Israel additionally mentioned it will allow extra support from Jordan to cross by the Kerem Shalom crossing within the south.
The Erez crossing has been closed since Oct. 7, and it was not instantly clear what infrastructure would possibly have to be put in place to facilitate Israeli safety checks on meals and provides there. Before the conflict, the crossing was utilized by pedestrians, not for the transport of products. Moving support by Erez into northern Gaza is more likely to current logistical hurdles as a result of most support for the enclave has been saved in El Arish in Egypt, on Gaza’s southern border.
The Israeli navy was additionally on excessive alert Saturday after Iranian leaders vowed retribution for the Israeli strike in Syria that killed a number of senior Iranian commanders earlier this week.
Almost instantly after the assault, Iran’s leaders pledged to avenge the killings, and U.S. officers in Washington and the Middle East mentioned they had been bracing for attainable Iranian retaliation.
On Saturday, the threats in opposition to Israel continued, as a second day of public funerals occurred in Iran, within the hometowns of the seven members of the elite Quds Force killed within the Israeli assault on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus, Syria.
The commander in chief of Iran’s armed forces, which incorporates the navy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, mentioned throughout one of many funeral ceremonies on Saturday that Iran would reply to Israel and that it will “decide the time, place and technique of the operation.” He added that the retaliation could be designed to inflict “most harm on the enemy.”
Israeli fight troopers anticipating to go on depart over the weekend have been ordered to stay at their stations, the Israeli navy mentioned, and extra reserve items have been known as as much as reinforce Israel’s air protection system.
Isabel Kershner, Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
