The Israel Defence Forces found the bodies of three hostages who were murdered by Hamas terrorists. Shani Louk (23), Amit Buskila (28), and Itzik Gelenter (53) were kidnapped and killed during the October 7 attack on the Nova Music Festival.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that the three were brutally murdered when they tried to escape during the attack. He said that their bodies were then dragged into the Gaza Strip.
Israel had confirmed the death of German-Israeli Louk, a 23-year-old tattoo artist, in late October. A video that circulated on social media at the time showed her half-naked body slung across the back of a pick-up truck and paraded through Gaza.
The 23-year-old had been paraded naked in a pick-up truck after being captured. In videos that were shared in the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks, Shani is lying face down in a pickup truck. Her family says they identified Shani from her dreadlocks and distinctive tattoos.
But the family of 53-year-old Gelernter was "in total darkness" about his fate until Friday, his daughter, Yarden Pivko, told Channel 12 News.
"We held on to hope and had a lot of faith that the end would be different," she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the news "heartbreaking." "This terrible loss is heart-breaking... We will return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased alike," he said.
Thousands of young people had gathered on October 6 and 7 to dance to electronic music at the Nova festival, which was held near the Re'im kibbutz close to the Gaza border.
Fighters from the terror group Hamas crossed over into Israel and killed more than 360 people at the festival, according to the Israeli government.
The Nova festival victims accounted for nearly a third of the around 1,170 people killed in the October 7 attack, most of them civilians.
Israel launched a retaliatory offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 35,303 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
