The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had found the “bodies” of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas commandos during the October 7 attack on Israel in the Gaza Strip, AFP noted.

“We conducted several raids in the Gaza Strip to find hostages and abductees,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.

During them, “we found and located (…) the bodies of some Israelis who were kidnapped,” the spokesman continued during a briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without further details.

A Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7 killed more than 1,300 people, most of whom were civilians, including children.

The Israeli military confirmed on Saturday that it had identified “more than 120 civilians” held captive in Gaza, where Hamas had threatened to execute them. Hundreds of people are considered missing, bodies are being identified.

For several days, the Israeli army bombarded the Gaza Strip, a small impoverished and besieged enclave between Israel and Egypt, killing more than 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including 724 children, according to local authorities.

At least five Israelis and four foreigners held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Islamist movement’s military wing announced Saturday.

The new deaths bring to 22 the number of hostages held by Hamas killed in raids since the war began a week ago, according to Hamas.

According to Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the Israeli military hit “several thousand” targets in Gaza.

The Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, in his opinion, “is not aware of the situation on the surface” because it “escaped in the tunnels.”

The army spokesman also said that the offensive on the area would not begin on Sunday for humanitarian reasons. “We continue to give civilians time to leave places that we believe are being used by Hamas for their terrorist infrastructure,” he commented (Agerpres).