World leaders have expressed concerns over the six Israeli hostages held by Hamas who have been confirmed dead after their bodies were found by the Israeli military in Gaza recently.
Report has it that the hostages, aged between 23 and 40 years old, were “brutally murdered” a short time before Israeli forces found them in an underground tunnel on Saturday night, according to the Israeli military.
They were among the 250 hostages taken on 7 October when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas made an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies, and triggering the war.
At least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 injured in Israel’s subsequent military offensive in Gaza, the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
“Hamas must release all the hostages now, and a ceasefire deal must be agreed by all sides immediately to end the suffering,” he said.
The United States President, Joe Biden said in a statement that, “It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
He later spoke to the family of one of the killed hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli.
Also, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau said on X that the murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas terrorists in Gaza is devastating and enraging, vowed that Canada will stand with the victims’ families in your grief.
According to him, “Hamas must release all hostages, lay down its arms, and have no future in the governance of Gaza. Leaders must reach a deal to bring the rest of the hostages home and end the violence”.
Meanwhile, protesters have flooded the streets of Israeli cities on Sunday in mass demonstrations demanding that the government immediately accept a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.
The furious protests, some of the largest the country has seen over months of failed negotiations, came after the Israeli military announced that six of the hostages had recently been killed in Gaza.
In Tel Aviv, protest organizers put the number of people in the hundreds of thousands. Hostage families and a crowd of supporters carried six prop coffins in a march through the city. They swarmed in front of the Israeli military headquarters and clashed with the police on a major highway.
Also, it was reported that Israel’s main union on Sunday has ordered a nationwide general strike after soldiers recovered the bodies of six killed hostages from the Gaza Strip where the military is battling Palestinian militants.
In the evening, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities to protest the government and call for a hostage release deal.
“Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses” in months of mediation efforts, the six hostages “would likely still be alive”, a statement said.
Israeli health ministry spokesperson Shira Solomon said the hostages were “murdered by Hamas terrorists with several close-range gunshots”, about 48-72 hours before their autopsies.