Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 22, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleIsraeli forces have retrieved the bodies of three hostages from Gaza, held since the Hamas attack in October 2023. The conflict continues with significant casualties.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of three hostages which had been held in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant group Hamas' 2023 attack, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
The hostages were identified as civilians Ofra Keidar and Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson. All were killed on the day of the attack, on October 7, 2023, the military said.
With their retrieval, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
The abduction of Samerano, 21 at the time of his death, by a man later identified by Israeli officials as a worker at the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, was caught on CCTV.
Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
The subsequent Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run strip, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.
(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Bernadette Baum)
The hostages were identified as civilians Ofra Keidar and Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson. All were killed on the day of the attack, on October 7, 2023.
With the retrieval of the three bodies, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, of whom only 20 are believed to be alive.
Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.
The subsequent Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run strip.
The abduction of Samerano, who was 21 at the time of his death, was carried out by a man later identified by Israeli officials as a worker at the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
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