The Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday that three soldiers kidnapped by the Islamist group Hamas on Oct. 7 and taken to the Gaza Strip were dead since the day of the attack that started the war.
The soldiers were identified as Shaked Dahan, 19, Tomer Yaakov Achims, 20, and Kiril Borsky, 19.
EFE has learned that the three young men were killed on the day of the attack and their bodies were taken to Gaza by Hamas.
They had been registered as “kidnapped by a terrorist organization” in records published by the IDF, which have now been updated to include their names among the 395 military deaths during the ongoing war.
The Islamist group captured more than 240 people in Israel during the attack and took them to Gaza, where some 170 hostages are still being held following the release over the past four days of 51 Israelis as part of a pact between Israel and Hamas and of 18 foreign hostages in separate negotiations.
The announcement of the three soldiers’ deaths comes on the fifth day of a cease-fire between the Israeli army and Hamas under a pact that went into effect Friday morning and is expected to last until Wednesday, although negotiations are underway for a possible extension.
Israel declared war on Hamas on Oct. 7 following an onslaught by the Islamist group that included the firing of more than 4,000 rockets and the infiltration of some 3,000 militiamen, killing some 1,200 civilians and soldiers and kidnapping more than 240 people in Israeli communities near Gaza.
Israeli forces have since stormed the Palestinian enclave, killing more than 15,000 people, most of them children and women and leaving an estimated 7,000 missing under the rubble, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza authorities.
By Nadeem Faisal Baiga Source EEF
