More than a fifth of the remaining hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza are dead, according to available intelligence collated by the Israeli military.
The confidential internal review, leaked to the New York Times, reportedly concluded that a minimum of 32 of the remaining 136 hostages captured by Hamas have died, with their families being informed.
The fate of a further 20 is also in question, amid unconfirmed intelligence they may also have died during their captivity.
The claims emerged as it was disclosed that the Israeli military has begun investigating dozens of incidents where Israeli soldiers may have broken the IDF’s own rules of conduct or violated international law governing conflict, mostly in incidents involving significant civilian casualties or the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The confidential internal review, leaked to the New York Times, reportedly concluded that a minimum of 32 of the remaining 136 hostages captured by Hamas have died, with their families being informed.
It remained unclear, however, whether the Israel Defense Forces review meant that Hamas was holding the bodies of all of those 32 understood to be dead to bargain with in the future.
The disclosure of the hostages’ apparent deaths came as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visited Qatar on Tuesday on his latest Middle East crisis tour, as he sought a new ceasefire and “an enduring end” to the Israel-Hamas war.
Blinken’s visit also comes amid growing concerns in Egypt about Israel’s stated intentions to expand the combat in Gaza to areas on the Egyptian border that are crammed with displaced Palestinians.
UN humanitarian monitors said on Tuesday that Israeli evacuation orders now covered two-thirds of Gaza’s territory, driving thousands more people every day towards the border areas.
Egypt has warned that an Israeli deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two countries signed over four decades ago.
The original article contains 787 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!