The Israeli military concluded on Monday that another four of its citizens taken hostage on Oct. 7 have died in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
Amiram Cooper, Haim Perry, Yoram Metzger, and Nadav Popplewell were all abducted during attacks inside southern Israel led by Hamas—a U.S. and Israeli-designated Palestinian terrorist group—and its affiliates.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Monday its belief that these four Israeli men had all died in recent months. The IDF said it concluded the four men had died even as Israeli forces have yet to locate and positively identify their remains.
The IDF said it decided to publicly report these four men had died after intelligence assessments and deliberations with Israeli health and religious ministers and the chief rabbi of Israel.
IDF spokesman Rear Adml. Daniel Hagari said the four men were likely killed while they were being held in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis. The city has seen months of fighting as Israeli forces have sought to eliminate Hamas and locate captives taken on Oct. 7.
Rear Aml. Hagari did not specify how these four captives might have died but said the IDF is “checking all of the options” and has “many questions” left to answer.
Messrs. Cooper, Metzger, and Perry are all at least 80 years old. The three men appeared alive in a video posted by Hamas-affiliated media sites in December. In the video, Mr. Perry pleaded for a deal for their release.
“We do not understand why we have been abandoned here,” Mr. Peri said in the December hostage video, adding that he and his fellow captives do not wish to risk being killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Al Aqsa TV, a Hamas-affiliated media publication, claimed in a March 1 social media post that Messrs. Cooper, Metzger, and Perry were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Other Hostages
The IDF’s decision to conclude Messrs. Cooper, Perry, Metzger, and Popplewell had died came just hours after Israeli forces reported locating the body of another Israeli citizen, whom they identified as Dolev Yehud, a 34-year-old father of four. The IDF concluded Mr. Yehud was working as a paramedic rendering medical aid at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters killed him and took his body back to the Gaza Strip.
Messrs. Cooper, Metzger, Perry, and Yehud are among the approximately 250 people missing or taken captive after the Oct. 7 attack.
Israeli troops reportedly rescued a fellow female Israeli soldier in an operation on Oct. 30.
Hamas turned over 105 of the captives in November as part of a temporary ceasefire deal that also saw the release of 240 Palestinians who had been held in Israeli custody. Hamas has unilaterally released another four captives, and Israeli forces freed another two in a rescue operation in February.
Israeli forces fired on and killed another three hostages in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City on Dec. 15. This trio of hostages had reportedly been waving white cloths and calling for Israeli forces to save them at the time they were killed.
The Hamas side has claimed Israeli military actions in the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of additional hostages.
Israeli forces reported recovering the bodies of at least seven different captives in the last two weeks of May.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of his governing coalition have set wartime goals to eliminate Hamas and win the release of all remaining hostages.
President Joe Biden announced Friday that the Israeli government had put forward a three-part deal for a Gaza ceasefire in exchange for the release of the remaining captives held in the Gaza Strip since October. The exact details of the proposed plan have proven divisive.
In his Friday remarks, President Biden said Israeli forces have “devastated Hamas” over the past eight months of fighting and rendered them incapable of carrying out another attack as they did on Oct. 7. But President Biden did not clearly say on Friday that the peace plan would see Hamas’ total defeat, going only so far as to say the ensuing peace framework would “not allow Hamas to re-arm.”
Mr. Netanyahu insisted on Saturday that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed” and that Israeli forces would keep working to ensure the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.