Hamza Ziyadne, 23, was abducted in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel alongside his siblings and father, whose body was also recovered this week.
The Israeli military said on Friday that Hamza Ziyadne, an Arab citizen of Israel held hostage in Gaza, had been killed in the Palestinian enclave, as efforts by mediators to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas to free hostages have seen little success.
More than 15 months after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, prompted the war in Gaza, around 98 hostages remain in Gaza. About 36 of those are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.
The confirmation of Mr. Ziyadne’s death comes a day after family and friends buried his father, Youssef Ziyadne, 53, who was also taken hostage. The Israeli military said their bodies been found together in a tunnel under the southern Gaza city of Rafah alongside their dead captors. It was not clear when they were found or how the Ziyadnes died.
Before they were discovered, neither hostage had been designated as presumed dead by Israeli officials, who have sought to use intelligence to assess the condition of the remaining hostages. That was likely to further escalate fears among the families of the remaining captives in Gaza that their relatives might have already suffered the same fate.
Some hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, while Israel has said that others were executed by their captors. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on Wednesday — after Youssef Ziyadne’s death was confirmed — that the military was still investigating.