Five Israeli hostages who died while held captive by Hamas have been freed from a network of underground tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip, the army said on Sunday, showing images of a white-tiled bathroom and the room’s work areas connected by dark concrete passages . , reports Reuters.

Army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said autopsies were pending: “We will notify the families and then, depending on their approval, the public,” the Army said, without saying how they died.

Three soldiers and two civilians were among 240 people abducted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants on October 7.

Earlier this month, the army announced the repatriation of the bodies.

Last week, Hamas released a video showing three hostages alive in a narrow, windowless, white-tiled bedroom with an electrical outlet on the wall. A strip in Hebrew at the bottom of the video reads Israel: “Your military weapons have killed three.”

Earlier, Hamas claimed that some of the hostages were killed in Israeli airstrikes. He also threatened to execute the hostages.

Sunday’s announcement by the Israeli military came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would deepen operations in the nearly 12-week-old war, a civilian death toll that has alarmed Western nations concerned about the fate of the 129 hostages.

A video released by the military showed its engineers in a network of dark and dusty tunnels that they said had two levels, one 10 meters deep and the other “tens of meters” deeper.

According to the Israeli military, one tunnel led to the house of Ahmad Al Ghandour, the head of the Hamas brigade in northern Gaza. Hamas said he and several other commanders were killed in combat on November 26. Israel said they were the target of one of its airstrikes.

The video showed a section of the tunnel lined with white tiles, as well as a similarly designed bathroom with a basic shower, toilet and sink, as well as a study with a corner desk and bench. In one tunnel there was a drinking water dispenser and a bunch of bullets. The video released by the Israeli military does not contain images that match the hostages’ bedroom shown in the Hamas video, whose ceiling appeared to be decorated differently, although it still had white tiles. (Agerpress)