The bodies of six Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, were recovered in an overnight, operation in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the military announced Tuesday morning. The deceased hostages brought back were Alex Dancyg, 75, Yagev Buchshtav, 35, Chaim Peri, 79, Yoram Metzger, 80, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Avraham Munder, 78.
Family members of the hostages, all of whom died while held in Gaza, accuse the far-right government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning them to their deaths and call for the urgent release of the remaining hostages.
Top (L-R): Nadav Popplewell, Yoram Metzger, Avraham Munder; bottom (L-R): Chaim Peri, Yagev Buchshtav, Alex Dancyg (Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Mati Dancyg, son of hostage Alex Dancyg who was killed in captivity and whose body has now been recovered from Gaza, lashes out at Netanyahu’s government, accusing it of “choosing to abandon the hostages in order to survive.” Speaking to the Kan public broadcaster, Dancyg notes testimony from released hostages that said Alex was in decent condition in the initial months of captivity. “He and all the hostages could have been brought back,” he charges. “Netanyahu chose to sacrifice the hostages. Karma will judge him, and he will pay for it, big time.”
On Monday, relatives of October 7 victims and other residents of the Gaza border region said they would skip a state ceremony being planned to mark a year since the Hamas-led massacre on Israel’s south. Instead, they will plan their own memorial amid simmering anger against authorities for failing to free hostages held in the Strip.
At least two hostages’ families have refused to let their loved ones’ names be used in the state ceremony being planned for October 7, 2024, by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who was recently appointed to organize an official event without public. They expressed concerns that the event would amount to propaganda meant to whitewash the government’s culpability. “We will not agree to our loved ones being memorialized in an engineered, contrived memorial performance under the watch of cynical politicians who shirk responsibility,” Jonathan Shamriz told the Ynet news website.
Shamriz, whose brother, Alon Shamriz, was one of three hostages killed by Israeli occupation forces as they escaped their captors, is among the leaders of Kumu (rise up), an organization of border community residents that will put together the alternate ceremony.
Kibbutz Nirim, one of over a dozen communities shattered by the attack, notified the government in a missive Monday that it would refuse to cooperate with the ceremony. “Instead of a state memorial service, we call for a state commission of inquiry,” Kibbutz Nirim said. “For an entire year, not a single government official has come to Nirim to take responsibility, admit failure and ask what is needed.”
The letter came a day after a production company sent to Nirim to scout for the ceremony was asked to leave by kibbutz residents, Channel 12 news reported. “The lives of kibbutz members and of all residents of the western Negev are not a movie, and the government of Israel is not a production company,” the letter read.
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, and a leading critic of the government, told Haaretz that she would not let her son’s name and likeness be used in a government ceremony, a week after Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, voiced a similar sentiment. Zanguaker told Haaretz she would let the government use her son’s name only on a list of hostages to be released. “Not in Miri Regev’s ceremonies and not in ceremonies the government wants to hold,” Zanguaker told Haaretz. Some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the onslaught on October 7, mostly civilians and over 109 hostages remain in Gaza.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32065
