Israeli Hostage’s Body Recovered and Identified in Gaza

Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the body of an Israeli hostage, Ron Benjamin, was identified in Gaza on Saturday after it was recovered the previous day.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, killing some 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages. Israel then subsequently launched its heaviest airstrikes against Gaza. About half of the hostages, meanwhile, were freed during a temporary ceasefire in November. Over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the conflict, according to local health officials.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari confirmed on Saturday that Benjamin’s body was recovered on Friday, along with the bodies of three other hostages. According to the IDF, the three previous hostages were identified as Shani Louk, Amit Bouskila, and Yitzhak Gelernter.

The bodies were identified by authorities and the families have since been informed, Hagari said, adding that the bodies have been taken for further forensic examination.

“Based on verified intelligence in our possession, Ron Benjamin was murdered during the October 7th Massacre at the Mefalsim Intersection, and his body was seized and brought to Gaza by Hamas terrorists,” Hagari said in a statement.

The IDF believes there are still 132 hostages being held in Gaza—128 of whom were taken on October 7.

Newsweek has reached out to the IDF via email for comment.

On the morning of October 7, Benjamin, 53, from Rehovot, had gone for a group bicycle ride by the Gaza border, near Kibbutz Be’eri as the cascade of rockets he heard above him prompted him to leave a voice message to his daughter at around 6.30 a.m. to say that he was fine, but would drive back home.

Previously speaking to Newsweek, Benjamin’s daughter, Shay Benjamin, recalled her account of October 7 as she attempted to contact her father.

“I was a bit scared but I thought it’s just another round of missiles and rockets—unfortunately we are used to that in Israel,” Shay told Newsweek.

Shay, 25, was in Dubai returning from a vacation in the Philippines when she was alerted of the events on October 7 as she made calls to her mother and her sister in an effort to locate her father. She had since been told by the IDF that her father was among the hostages taken on that day.

“Ever since then, we have just been fighting on,” Shay said.

According to the IDF, the recovery of Benjamin and the other hostages were part of a joint operation with Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency (ISA), with the “intelligence obtained during the interrogations of terrorists who were apprehended in the Gaza Strip, as well as intelligence from the IDF Intelligence Directorate.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to express his grief for the death of the hostages.

“The heart breaks for the great loss. My wife Sara and I grieve with the families. All our hearts are with them in this hour of grieving. We will return all our hostages, the dead and the alive alike. I congratulate our brave forces who, with determined action, have returned our sons and daughters home,” he wrote.

The recovery of Benjamin and the other hostages comes as efforts to secure a hostage deal for the release of all the captives have been at a standstill for weeks as Netanyahu plans to move forward with the launch of an invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where over 1 million civilians are sheltering, with or without a ceasefire deal.

“The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu said in a statement last month. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there—with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory.”