JERUSALEM. Israel has recovered the body of hostage Ilan Weiss from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed on Friday.
The remains of a second hostage, whose identity has not yet been released for publication, were also retrieved, the statement said.
Weiss, 55, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, was abducted from his home and killed during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led cross-border attack, according to the Israeli military. His wife, Shiri, and daughter, Noga, were also kidnapped but were later freed in a hostage-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
With Weiss’s remains recovered, Israeli authorities said 49 hostages remain in Gaza, and only 20 are believed to be alive.
The Prime Minister’s Office reiterated that the campaign to bring home the hostages continues. “We will neither rest nor be silent until we bring all of our hostages back home, the living and the deceased,” the statement read.
The October 7 attack left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage, Israeli officials reported. In response, Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave. The war has displaced nearly the entire 2.3 million population, devastated infrastructure, and deepened the humanitarian crisis.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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