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      Discovery of 6 Dead Hostages in Gaza Spurs Protest and Division in Israel

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      The Israeli military said Sunday that Hamas had killed the hostages before they were discovered by Israeli troops on Saturday.The Israeli military said on Sunday that six bodies found in a tunnel under the Gaza Strip belonged to hostages who had been killed by Hamas, setting off a wave of grief and anger in Israel and further cleaving the deep divisions among the public, and the country’s leaders, over the future course of the war.Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesman, said the bodies had been recovered a day earlier in the labyrinths under the southern city of Rafah, about one kilometer from where a seventh hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, was found alive last week.“They were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” Admiral Hagari said. The Israeli Ministry of Health said in a statement on Sunday that the hostages were killed by “a number of short-range shots” and that they had died about “48-72 hours before their examination.”After the recovery of six hostages that the Israeli military said had been killed by Hamas, demonstrators filled the streets of Tel Aviv demanding that the government do more to bring the remaining hostages home.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn an initial statement, Hamas did not directly address the accusations but said responsibility for the deaths lay with Israel, which it blamed for the lack of an agreement to stop the fighting in Gaza. Hamas later asserted in a separate statement that the hostages were killed by the Israeli military’s bullets, without providing evidence.The recovery of the hostages’ bodies put into stark relief the competing priorities of Israel’s leaders: those intent on dismantling Hamas through the pursuit and killing of its fighters and officials, and those who want to reach a truce that would bring home the dozens of captives still believed to be still alive in the enclave.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Three Israeli Police Officers Killed in the West Bank

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      Gunmen killed three Israeli police officers on Sunday morning as they drove through the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the latest episode in the spiral of violence in the territory that includes attacks by Palestinian and Israeli extremists, as well as ongoing raids by the Israeli military in Palestinian cities.The officers were shot and killed as they drove along a highway in the southern part of the West Bank, close to a major checkpoint where traffic is screened before entering Israel, according to statements from the Israeli police and Magen David Adom, the emergency medical service.One of the officers was the father of a police officer who was killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 raid on southern Israel that started the war in Gaza, according to the police.The episode followed two attacks on Friday night by Palestinian militants, one of whom attempted to detonate a car bomb at a busy intersection in the southern West Bank, according to the Israeli military. In the second attack, a Palestinian drove into a nearby Israeli settlement, prompting a car chase and a shootout that caused an explosion in the Palestinian’s car, the military said.The Israeli military raided three major cities in the northern West Bank last week, killing at least 22 people, according to the Palestinian health authorities. The military said the operation was aimed at quelling armed Palestinian groups, but critics warned that the death and destruction caused by the raids risked encouraging the same violence that they aimed to reduce.Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 after capturing it from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war that year. Israel has since built hundreds of settlements in the territory, which are considered illegal by most of the world. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis now live under military protection in the West Bank, interspersed among roughly three million Palestinians who generally want the territory to form the backbone of a future Palestinian state.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Says It Has Recovered More Bodies in Gaza

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      The Israeli military asked the public not to speculate, but many Israelis assumed the announcement referred to dead hostages. The news amplified calls for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had found a number of dead bodies during an operation in the Gaza Strip, asking the Israeli public to refrain from speculation about their identities.The announcement was widely interpreted in Israel, however, as confirmation that more Israeli hostages had died in captivity, and it quickly amplified calls for an immediate cease-fire in order to free the roughly 100 captives still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza.Roughly 250 people were captured by Hamas and its allies during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which started the war.The military said in a statement on Saturday that the recently found bodies had yet to be identified and brought to Israel. It did not give further details about how many bodies had been found or where they were discovered, and it would not officially confirm that they were hostages.Still, the news of the discovery accelerated an increasingly rancorous debate within Israeli society about whether Israel should soften its position during negotiations with Hamas for a cease-fire. Under the terms currently being negotiated, scores of hostages would be released from captivity in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israel.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is holding out for a deal in which the country would be able to retain control of strategic parts of Gaza during the cease-fire and restart the war in the future.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jenin, a Target of Israeli Raids, Is a Symbol of Rebellion for Palestinians

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      Jenin, a focal point of Israel’s wide-ranging raid into the West Bank on Wednesday, is a potent symbol of rebellion and militancy for Palestinians after decades of fighting against occupying powers.That history dates back to British rule of Palestine during what was known as the Arab Revolt of the 1930s, and through the 1948 Arab-Israeli war surrounding the creation of the modern Israel and triggered the flight or expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.But Jenin’s resonance today, both for Palestinians and Israelis, largely stems from the second intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation in the early 2000s.Israelis remember Jenin, which sits in the rolling hillsides of the northern West Bank, as a source of dozens of suicide bombers sent into Israel at that time.Palestinians remember a 10-day battle, known as the Battle of Jenin, in 2002 between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. Israel killed 52 people, of which up to half may have been civilians, according to the United Nations in a report on the event. The fighting killed 23 Israeli soldiers.Yasir Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, dubbed the camp “Jeningrad,” a reference to the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hostage Rescued in Gaza as Israeli Airstrikes Kill Scores of Palestinians

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      A Bedouin Arab citizen of Israel was rescued after Israeli commandos found him alone in an underground warren, apparently abandoned by his captors.An elite Israeli military unit rescued a frail and gaunt hostage from a tunnel deep beneath the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the eighth living captive to be freed by Israeli troops in nearly 11 months of war and the first to be found alive in the subterranean labyrinth used by Hamas.The rescue came amid Israeli airstrikes across Gaza that Palestinian emergency services said killed at least 20 people. At one of the bombing sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, emergency crews frantically searched for survivors trapped under a collapsed building.The rescued hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, 52, a member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority, was freed by commandos without a fight after being discovered in a room roughly 25 yards underground, Israeli officials said. More than 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom are now presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, portrayed the operation to rescue Mr. al-Qadi, as “complex and brave.” He said the soldiers reached him after “precise intelligence” was collected by Israel’s security services.But that account was at odds with details provided by two senior Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. al-Qadi, the Israeli officials said, was found by chance during an operation to capture a Hamas tunnel network. A team led by Flotilla 13, Israel’s equivalent to the U.S. Navy SEALs, were combing the tunnels for signs of Hamas when, to the forces’ surprise, they found Mr. al-Qadi on his own, without guards, the officials said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Is Farhan al-Qadi, the Hostage Israel Rescued?

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      The Israeli military on Tuesday celebrated the rescue of Farhan al-Qadi, who was taken hostage during Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7. The 52-year-old was hospitalized in stable medical condition.Mr. al-Qadi, a member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority, is from Rahat, a city in southern Israel. He was working in a small Israeli kibbutz, called Magen, near the Gaza border, when he was abducted, according to a post on X from President Isaac Herzog of Israel.His brother, Khatem al-Qadi, told Israeli television that the family planned a huge party to celebrate his return. Calling for a cease-fire deal, he wished the same for other hostages still in captivity: “They are still waiting to see their loved ones back today,” he said. “We are wishing for all of the hostages to be released and for there to be a deal now.’’For some, Mr. al-Qadi’s rescue was a reminder of the toll the attacks took on Israel’s impoverished Bedouin community. At least 17 Bedouins died in the Oct. 7 attacks. Many more who had worked on Jewish farms in southern Israel lost their livelihoods after the farms were ransacked.Even before the attacks, the Bedouins were suffering. Few have access to bomb shelters and health clinics because they live in villages that the Israeli government does not recognize. Even though Hamas does not specifically target them, Bedouins are not always able to seek shelter when the group fires rockets into southern Israel.Gabby Sobelman More

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      In a Region on Edge, Israel and Hezbollah Launch Major Attacks on Each Other

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      The escalating strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border fueled fears of a bigger conflagration, but both sides signaled that they were de-escalating, for now.Amid fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the two sides on Sunday mounted the biggest round of cross-border strikes since the war in Gaza began, with Israel bombing dozens of sites in a pre-emptive attack, and Hezbollah launching hundreds of rockets and drones.Within hours, both sides appeared to de-escalate, at least temporarily, but signaled that the violence and dangerous tensions could continue. Hezbollah said its operation, vengeance for the Israeli assassination of a senior commander, had “finished for the day,” but left open the possibility of further action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that “what happened today is not the final word.”For weeks, Israelis have waited in trepidation for a major attack promised by Hezbollah in retaliation for the airstrike last month in a suburb of Beirut that killed one of its leaders, Fuad Shukr. Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, has also vowed retribution for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader, on a visit to Tehran, hours after Mr. Shukr was killed, though it appears to have put that plan on hold.After the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began firing frequently on Israel, prompting widespread Israeli bombardment. Repeated strikes, counter-strikes and threats have forced more than 160,000 people to evacuate on both sides of the border, stoking fears that the conflict would ignite full-scale regional war pitting Israel not only against Hezbollah — a more potent force than Hamas — but also its patron Iran.Before dawn on Sunday, Israel’s military said it used about 100 warplanes to strike more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites in Lebanon, saying it had acted to prevent a major attack. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least three people had been killed and two others hurt, and Israel said a soldier was killed and two others wounded during the Hezbollah barrage.The Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a televised address in Beirut, on Sunday.Bilal Hussein/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Parents of Gaza Hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Plead for Peace at DNC

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      It was a remarkably somber moment inside the arena as Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg spoke of their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a hostage in Gaza for more than 10 months — 320 days, as the tape on their shirts said.While the Israeli-Hamas war has been one of the only divisive undercurrents of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, delegates stood in rapt attention as Ms. Goldberg and Mr. Polin took the stage.The crowd chanted, “Bring them home,” and Ms. Goldberg doubled over in tears.“This is a political convention,” Mr. Polin said, “but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue.”Mr. Goldberg-Polin, 23, is one of eight U.S. citizens in captivity in Gaza. Part of his left arm was blown off by a Hamas grenade as he was abducted on Oct. 7.Ms. Goldberg emphasized the diversity of the more than 100 hostages still in Gaza.“They are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists,” she said. “They are from 23 different countries. The youngest hostage is a 1-year-old redheaded baby boy, and the oldest is an 86-year-old mustachioed grandfather.”Mr. Polin ended with a plea for peace.“There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East,” he said. “In a competition of pain, there are no winners.”Citing Jewish texts, he added: “Every person is an entire universe. We must save all these universes.” More