June 5 (UPI) — Israel said Thursday it had recovered the remains of two Israeli-American hostages in a military operation overnight in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X that the bodies of Gadi Haggai, 72, and Judy Weinstein-Haggai, 70, had been returned to their families in Israel 20 months after they were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and taken back to Gaza.
He said the married couple were recovered in a special operation mounted by the Israeli Security Agency and Israel Defense Forces.
“I would like to thank, and express appreciation to, the fighters and commanders for this determined and successful operation. We will not rest, nor will we be silent, until we return home all of our hostages — the living and the deceased,” Netanyahu said.
The couple, who held U.S. citizenship, were out for a morning walk near their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were gunned down by Mujahideen Brigades fighters who joined the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds abducted.
“We welcome the closure and their return to a proper burial at home, in Israel,” a statement from the families of Haggai and Weinstein said.
Judy Weinstein-Haggai was born in New York but moved to Toronto, Canada, with her family at the age of 3. She married Gadi Haggai after meeting him while working as a volunteer on a kibbutz in the 1970s, according to a bio posted on social media.
Gadi Haggai was described as a retired chef, a passionate jazz musician, and a devoted father and grandfather.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was a painful time but also a moment of solace.
“We will continue to do everything in our power to bring our sisters and brothers back from hell — the living, for healing and rehabilitation, and the fallen, to be laid to rest in dignity. Every last one of them!” Herzog said on X.
The couple’s recovery means 54 out of the 251 people originally taken hostage remain in Gaza, of whom about 20 are believed to be still alive.
As of Wednesday, Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, put the number of Palestinians killed since Israel launched its military response a day after the Oct. 7 attacks at 54,607 and 125,341 injured.
The “Bring Them Home Now” Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it wanted to stress that a grave was a basic human right and called for authorities to do whatever was necessary to reach an agreement that will see the return of the rest of the hostages, “the living for rehabilitation and the murdered for burial.”
“There is no need to wait another 608 agonizing days for this. The mission can be completed as early as tomorrow morning. This is what the majority of the Israeli people want.”
Thursday’s rescue came hours after the United States vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.
The Slovenia-sponsored resolution, which also called for the unconditional release of all the hostages held by Hamas and other groups and the immediate lifting of all restrictions on aid going into Gaza, was defeated in a 14-1 vote on Wednesday evening in New York, the U.N. said in a news release.
Slovenia’s representative to the U.N. expressed disappointment at the vetoing of a measure motivated by humanitarian intentions, saying “starving civilians and inflicting immense suffering” was inhumane, in breach of international law and unwarranted by any war objective.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dorothy Shea said Washington could not support rewarding Hamas with a permanent cease-fire that would leave it with the ability to carry out further attacks and criticized the “false equivalence” drawn between Hamas and Israel in the text of the draft resolution.
She also argued that the draft did not make any mention of the failings of the system used operated by the U.N. and aid charities to distribute humanitarian assistance in Gaza, which she said had been exploited by Hamas for its own benefit.
“Performative actions designed to draw a veto” would only serve to undermine efforts to resolve matters through quiet diplomacy currently underway between the parties, said Shea.
