Israeli security forces recovered the bodies of three more hostages in an overnight operation in northern Gaza on Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), supported by the Shin Bet security service, rescued the bodies of Hanan Yablonka (42), Michel Nisenbaum (59), and Orion Hernandez (32), all three murdered by Hamas during the October 7th massacre.
Yablonka and Radoux were kidnapped from the Nova music festival. Nisenbaum, a resident of the southern Israeli town of Sderot, fell into the hands of Hamas as he was out to save his 4-year-old granddaughter during the terrorist attack. Her granddaughter, protected by her father, miraculously survived the attack.
The Hamas terrorists murdered all three them on Israeli soil and took their bodies to Gaza, news reports suggest. “According to reliable intelligence information in our possession, it appears that the abductees were murdered during the brutal terrorist attack on October 7th and were abducted by the Hamas terrorists from the level crossing to Gaza,” the Tel Aviv-based ILTV reported on Telegram.
The remains of the three hostages were found in Jabaliya, a city in northern Gaza where the IDF is currently carrying out a ground operation to destroy Hamas from regrouping in the area while the Rafah offensive in underway in the south. “The bodies of the hostages were rescued overnight during a joint IDF and ISA [the Israel Security Agency or Shin Bet] operation in Jabaliya, based on precise intelligence obtained and analyzed over the past days by the IDF Intelligence Directorate’s Headquarters for the Hostages and Missing Persons in collaboration with the ISA. At the beginning of the operation, intense combat was carried out in the area,” The IDF said in a press release Friday morning.
The bodies were found a weeks after a similar operation that led to the recovery of four bodies belonging to Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas on October 7.
The Jerusalem Post reported the details of the three hostages:
Hernandez was the boyfriend of Shani Louk, another murdered hostage whose body was recovered earlier by the IDF. He held Mexican and French citizenship. (…)Yablonka was from Tel Aviv and a father of two children aged 12 and 9.Nissembaum, 59, held Brazilian citizenship and was initially declared missing. He had left his house in Sderot to retrieve his four-year-old granddaughter from her father, who is an officer in the Gaza division.
Israeli ground troops continue to gain ground in Rafah as the operation entered its 18th day. “IDF troops are continuing operations against terror targets in the area of Rafah,” the IDF disclosed Friday morning. “Throughout the past day, as part of searches in the area, the troops destroyed weapon storage facilities, as well as tunnel shafts and additional terrorist infrastructure.”
Israeli military was also operating in northern Gaza city of Jabaliya, preventing Hamas to rally terrorist forces in the area. “The IDF continues operational activity in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip,” the IDF disclosed on Friday. “During targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure in the area, the troops eliminated dozens of terrorists and destroyed launch posts and underground tunnel shafts. The troops also located numerous weapons including explosive devices, mortar shells, AK-47 rifles, sniper rifles, and others.”
Soldiers also found a rocket depot in the area belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group. “Troops of the elite LOTAR unit, operating under the 460th Armored Brigade in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya, located a building used to store rockets, the IDF says,” the Times of Israel reported Friday. “The military says the building was locked and some of the rockets found inside were long-range. The Israeli media also reported limited military operations in central Gaza in response to Hamas rocket fire.
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