Hostage horror: at least 32 dead

Worst fears come true

GAZA STRIP: Hopes of rescuing the remaining 132 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas have been dealt a devastating blow following reports 32 of them are dead, and with fears for the safety of another 20.

Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the families of those confirmed dead had all been informed, with the IDF “working in all ways to return (the hostages) home, and exhausting all information about them and their conditions”.

Officials had confirmed the death of 29 of those hostages, but a confidential report by the IDF reported by The New York Times cited 32 deaths.

Admiral Hagari said most of those killed died during the Hamas attack on October 7 before their bodies were taken to Gaza by the terrorists.

The IDF said the bodies of two soldiers, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin – who were abducted and killed by Hamas in 2014 – were also being held.

As families of some of the hostages protested outside the Israeli Defence Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met with the families of eight Spaniards being held captive.

“We demand their immediate and unconditional release,” Mr Sanchez wrote on X.

Hamas, meanwhile, has delivered its response to a ceasefire plan hammered out in Paris last weekend with Qatari and Egyptian mediators and UN and Israeli negotiators.

It has demanded a “comprehensive and complete ceasefire, and ending the aggression against our people, and guaranteeing relief, shelter, reconstruction, lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip and completing a prisoner exchange”.

However, those conditions are considered “non-starters” by the Israeli government.

“We will not accept any conditions for ending the war,” an Israeli government source told the country’s Kan public broadcaster.

Despite the impasse, Qatar claimed the reply from Hamas, a designated terrorist group, was “positive”.

“We have received a reply from Hamas with regards to the general framework of the agreement with regards to hostages. The reply includes some comments but in general it is positive,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said after meeting US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Doha.

After the meeting, Mr Blinken flew to Israel to discuss Hamas’ response.

“We’re studying it intensely … and we will be working as hard as we possibly can to try to get an agreement,” he said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with NBC, Iran’s UN ambassador confirmed that Tehran was sending weapons and training Palestinian terror groups.

“In the case of Palestine, we’re sending arms, we’re training them and empowering them,” Amir Saeid Iravan told the Nightly News program.

“But with the other parts of the region, the resistance parts in the region, we have some coordination, co-operation, consultation, and maybe some financing also.”

He said he expected the Tehran-backed strikes would stop if there was a ceasefire.