Family of Israeli hostage whose body was found: ‘He could have been saved’

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Saturday that it had recovered the body of an Israeli hostage who was abducted during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, almost six months after he was captured.

The man, identified as Elad Katzir, 47, was a farmer in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip that was one of the areas hardest hit in the attack Oct. 7, in which 1,200 Israelis died and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. His body was recovered by troops in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where the Israeli army has been operating since December, and returned to Israel overnight, the military said.

After the announcement of the recovery and return of Katzir’s body, Katzir’s sister, Carmit, bitterly denounced the Israeli government in a social media post for failing to secure her brother’s release.

“He could have been saved if there had been a deal in time,” she wrote. “But our leadership are cowards, motivated by political considerations, and thus it did not happen.

“Your story shouldn’t have ended like this,” she wrote to her brother. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you. I love you forever.”

Katzir was killed in midJanuary, an Israeli military official told a press briefing Saturday, while being held in Gaza by a militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Around 8 p.m. Friday, the official said, Israeli forces arrived in southern Khan Younis, isolated the area and excavated his body from where he was buried underground.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2009, after Palestinian rocket attacks led to a deadly three-week Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza, Katzir said that he felt a nagging unease in Nir Oz, where he was born.

“I do not feel any victory,” Katzir said at the time, when the fighting had ended with a shaky cease-fire. “I still do not feel safe.”

On Oct. 7, Katzir sent voice messages to a local WhatsApp group intended for emergencies: There were terrorists in the kibbutz, he said, and they were moving from house to house. “We need help as soon as possible.” No such help was forthcoming as the Israeli military struggled to regain control of towns and major junctions near Gaza.

Islamic Jihad released at least two videos of Katzir during his captivity. In the last, in early January, he said he had been held for more than 90 days and described hearing on the radio of the death of a close friend from Nir Oz.

The recovery of Katzir’s body added another tragic chapter to a grim saga for both the residents of Nir Oz and the Katzir family. On Oct. 7, over a quarter of the more than 400 residents of Nir Oz were either killed or abducted in the attack, among them Katzir’s father, Avraham, who was killed, and his mother, Hanna, who was taken hostage, according to the Israeli military.

Hanna Katzir, 76, was released in November as part of a brief cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, in which more than 100 hostages were returned. Her reappearance stunned some of her family members, because Palestinian Islamic Jihad had earlier claimed that she was dead.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has resisted increasingly urgent pleas from President Joe Biden and other world leaders to agree to a ceasefire to facilitate the return of the hostages, insisting that only continued “military pressure” on Hamas will force the group to come to the table.

His recalcitrance has infuriated the families of many of the hostages who, fearing that their loved ones could be killed by their captors or by errant Israeli fire, have demanded more immediate action.

In a vigil in the coastal city of Tel Aviv on Saturday night, the families of several hostages said the Israeli government was running out of time to save their loved ones from Katzir’s fate. “Spare the other families the bitter news received by the Katzir family, and give us the one joyful message we have been longing for these past six months,” said Nissim Kalderon, whose brother Ofer was also abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct 7.

“Make the decision and bring them home,” he said.

Palestinian militants still hold about 100 living hostages in the enclave, Israeli authorities say, and more than 30 others are now presumed dead. Over the past several weeks, Israel and Hamas have resumed indirect negotiations over a possible cease-fire and the release of at least some hostages. In a statement on Telegram on Saturday, Hamas said that a delegation of its leadership would travel to Cairo on Sunday for further negotiations.