4/6/2024–|Last updated: 6/4/202401:19 PM (Mecca time)
A government census showed – today, Tuesday – that Israel believes that more than a third of the remaining prisoners in the Gaza Strip have died, at a time when the United States seeks to strengthen efforts to recover “detainees” under a proposal to end the war.
Of the approximately 250 people who were taken by Palestinian militants to the Gaza Strip during the Al-Aqsa flood attack on October 7, dozens were released in the truce last November, and the Israeli occupation forces said that they recovered others, some of them alive and others who died.
According to Israeli government statistics, there are still 120 “detainees” in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli officials announced the death of 43 of them without recovering their bodies.
According to Israeli sources, these estimates come “based on information from various sources, including intelligence information, surveillance cameras or videos taken by bystanders, and analyzes of evidence.” Some Israeli officials believe that the death toll could be higher.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) had previously announced that air strikes launched by the occupation army had caused the death of Israeli prisoners, and Abu Ubaida – spokesman for the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the movement’s military wing – announced that more than 70 prisoners had been killed as a result of the army’s military operations. Israeli in the Gaza Strip.
Israel did not rule this out completely, and claimed that some of the bodies of its prisoners that were recovered showed signs indicating that they had been executed. The occupation army announced yesterday, Monday, that 4 other prisoners held by Hamas had died.
The Israeli census comes after US President Joe Biden announced last Friday a proposal to end the war, according to which some prisoners would be released during a ceasefire.
But mediation efforts to conclude the agreement faltered with Israel’s insistence on “resuming the campaign to eliminate Hamas” with Hamas’s demands for a guaranteed end to the war and the withdrawal of all occupation forces.