Israel recovers body of hostage Ilan Weiss from Gaza, PM’s office says

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(Reuters) -Israel has recovered the body of hostage Ilan Weiss from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday.

The remains of a second hostage, whose name had yet to be released for publication, were also retrieved, the statement added.

Weiss, 55, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, in southern Israel, was kidnapped from his home and killed during the October 7, 2023, cross-border attack by Hamas, the Israeli military said.

His wife, Shiri, and daughter, Noga, were also abducted and later released as part of a hostage-prisoner swap deal in November 2023.

With Weiss’s body recovered, Israel says 49 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom only 20 are believed to be alive.

The prime minister’s office said the campaign to return the hostages was ongoing. “We will neither rest nor be silent until we bring all of our hostages back home, the living and the deceased,” the statement said.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. The war has displaced nearly the entire 2.3 million population, devastated infrastructure, and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

(Reporting by Jana Choukeir; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Alex Richardson)