The Israeli army announced in a statement on Tuesday that it had found the bodies of two Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip during a military operation, AFP reported.

Israeli soldiers in a ground operation in the Gaza StripPhoto: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP/Profimedia

“During the operation in Gaza, the bodies of hostages Eden Zakaria and (soldier) Ziv Dado were discovered and brought to Israel,” the army said.

According to the army, Sergeant Ziv Dado, 36, was killed in a bloody attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7 and his body was flown to Gaza, while Eden Zachariah, 28, was abducted the same day at Nova music. festival, during which 364 people were killed and about 40 were taken hostage.

According to the same source, two reservists were killed last Thursday during an operation to search for bodies. One of them was the son of Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief of staff and member of the Israeli military cabinet.

More than 18,400 people have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded in Gaza as a result of military operations, particularly the intense bombing that Israel has carried out since the war against Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has been in power in the small and overpopulated territory since the start of the war in 2007.

The conflict was sparked by an attack from Gaza on October 7 by Palestinian militants who infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and forcibly taking about 240 Israeli and foreign hostages.

Before the announcement, the Israeli military, which has never published a list, said 137 hostages were still being held in Gaza, including the bodies.

On Sunday, Hamas warned that none of the hostages still being held in Gaza would be released “alive” without negotiations and without “fulfilment of the demands” of the Palestinian movement.

The hostages’ relatives association and the kibbutz where he lived announced Saturday that Sahar Baruch, the Israeli hostage kidnapped on October 7, has died, saying he was “killed” in Gaza by his captors.

Hamas announced the death of the hostage as the army tried to rescue him and released a video showing the body of a man identified in the footage as Sahar Baruch.

The video cannot be independently verified.