The Israel Defense Forces announced Saturday that several bodies, likely of those of Israeli hostages seized and held by Hamas, were found underground in Gaza.
The military is not confirming any specifics about the bodies, including the identities and number found, until the corpses are returned to Israel, where they will be checked and identified by professional experts, despite rumors circulating on social media, reports The Jerusalem Post.
The identifications are expected to be complete later on Sunday.
IDF sources said that if the bodies are confirmed to be those of hostages, they were not killed in fighting with Hamas, as the military has not used force near the undisclosed location where they were found.
The location of where the bodies were found has been placed under a gag order.
Meanwhile, opposition voices in Israel are speaking out about the discovery.
"Starting tomorrow, the country will tremble" and "grind to a halt," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement on X, while accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having "abandoned the hostages: This is now a fact."
The forum is calling for massive protests, starting Sunday.
"We call on the public to prepare," it said. "The country will grind to a halt. The abandonment is over.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid also commented on the news about the potential that hostages were found, accusing Netanyahu of focusing on insignificant issues as "our sons and daughters are being abandoned and dying in captivity," reports The Times of Israel.
"Not the Philadelphi Corridor nor the polio vaccines [in Gaza] interest him — just the coalition and preserving [the partnership with Bezalel] Smotrich and [Itamar] Ben Gvir," said Lapid. "In the process, he is crushing the families and the nation of Israel.”
Meanwhile, the IDF killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad Central Camps Brigade commander Muhammad Katrouy Saturday during a targeted strike in central Gaza, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Katrouy had been behind some of the PIJ's rocket attacks on Israel from the central Gaza Strip, the military said.
In the past few months, the IDF has eliminated several Hamas commanders, including killing Hamas platoon commander Hossam Mansour in mid-July. He was one of the directors of the "Al-Khair" Foundation, which transfers money to fund terror organizations.
Khan Yunis Brigade commander Rafa’a Salameh was killed the following day. He had been known as being close to Gaza Chief Yahya Sinwar and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
Jaber Aziz, the commander of Hamas's Al-Furqan Battalion, was killed in August. He had played a key role in planning the attack on Israel last Oct. 7.
Senior Hamas commander Walid al-Sousi was taken out a week after Aziz, reports the publication. He had headed Hamas's General Security Apparatus in the southern Gaza Strip.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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