The Israeli military will use evidence found inside a Gaza tunnel to investigate the murder of six hostages held there, spokesman Daniel Hagari said Tuesday.
After showing a pre-recorded video of himself exploring the tunnel where the hostages’ bodies were discovered earlier this month, Hagari told a press briefing that “all the findings you saw inside the tunnel were taken for investigation and testing. We are checking the materials, and we are exhausting every lead in order to get to the terrorists who are responsible for the vile murder.”
Some background: The bodies of six hostages held by Hamas were recovered from an underground tunnel in Gaza on Sunday, September 1. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said at the time that their bodies had been found in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, and that they had been “brutally” murdered “a short while” before Israeli troops were able to reach them.
The discovery touched off a massive wave of protests in Israel over the Israeli government’s failure to reach a ceasefire-and-hostage-release deal with Hamas, which controls Gaza.
