Number of Israeli Hostages Still Alive in Gaza “Could Be As Low As 50”, WSJ Report
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The number of Israeli hostages who are still alive in Gaza following their capture by Hamas on Oct. 7 “could be as low as 50,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Thursday, June 20. The WSJ report cites hostage mediators and a US official with knowledge of current intelligence on the issue of Israeli captives in Gaza.
Around 250 Israeli and foreign hostages were kidnapped to Gaza during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas: 116 hostages remain unaccounted for.
Israel has already officially stated that 41 hostages still in Gaza have died, All Israel News (AIN) reports. The IDF has so far retrieved 19 bodies of hostages for burial in Israel, including eight in the last three months, AIN said.
Neither the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence nor the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office have commented on the WSJ report.
In a statement made last week, Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan claimed not to know how many captives are still alive. “I don’t have any idea about that,” Hamdan said. “No one has any idea about this.”
Following a disputed claim by the UK’s Daily Mail in April that only 40 Israeli hostages were still alive, Israel’s Shin Bet countered in a statement that month: “The numbers mentioned in the article are based on the writer’s opinion only and are not based on information from the Shin Bet.”
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