Israel has recovered the body of Ilan Weiss from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday. The remains of a second hostage, whose name has not yet been cleared for publication, were also retrieved.
Weiss, 55, from Kibbutz Be’eri, was abducted from his home and killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the Israeli military said. His wife, Shiri, and daughter, Noga, were seized in the same raid and later released in a November 2023 hostage-prisoner swap.
With Weiss’s body recovered, Israel says 49 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive. “We will neither rest nor be silent until we bring all of our hostages back home, the living and the deceased,” the prime minister’s office said.
Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Oct. 7 assault, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s subsequent campaign in Gaza has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, displacing nearly the entire 2.3 million population and devastating infrastructure.