The Eagle News:

Israel’s military has recovered the body of a man taken hostage and held in Gaza, in an overnight operation in Khan Younis yesterday.

Elad Katzir was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7 last year.

According to official sources, the body of Elad Katzir has been brought back to Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli Security Agency (ISA) said.

“He was identified by medical officials, and his family has been informed” the source said.

The IDF and ISA said in a joint statement “The body of the hostage Elad Katzir, who according to intelligence was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, was rescued overnight from Khan Yunis and returned to Israeli territory.”

They said his remains were located using precise intelligence.

Elad was buried in the Khan Younis refugee camp, at a site used by terror operatives.

Information about the grave was obtained by IDF ans ISA about a week ago and confirmed on Friday evening. Hours later his body was exhumed and returned to Israel, the source said

Mr Katzir, 47, was abducted from Nir Oz with his mother Hanna, 77.

She was released along with 104 other hostages during a six-day ceasefire at the end of November.

Elad’s sister, Carmit Palty Katzir, blamed Israeli authorities for her brother’s death in a post on social media, saying he would have returned alive had they agreed a new truce deal.

“Our leadership is cowardly and driven by political consideration, which is why this deal has not happened yet,” she wrote on Facebook.

The 7 October Hamas attacks killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

In rebuttle of this incident, around 33,137 people have been killed in Gaza since then in attack of Hamas. The Hamas-run health ministry says – many of them women and children. This includes at least 46 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.