About half a day after the release of information about the operation to return the bodies of five hostages, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke publicly for the first time about the operation and expressed his sorrow to the bereaved families.
Netanyahu began by saying: "My wife Sara and I mourn their pain and embrace the families of Ravid Katz, Maya Goren, Oren Goldin, Tomer Achims, and Kiril Borodetsky, who were murdered and abducted on October 7 by the Hamas monsters."
He added: "May their memory be a blessing. I thank the IDF and Shin Bet for the decisive operation that managed to bring them to a burial site in Israel. We are committed to our sacred mission: to return all our loved ones home, both the living and the dead."
**Intelligence Information from Terrorist Interrogations**
This morning, the IDF spokesperson released new details about the complex operation to recover the bodies from Khan Younis. The forces that carried out the rescue included the 98th Division in cooperation with units from Sayeret Egoz and Yahalom, based on precise intelligence received from the Shin Bet. This intelligence led the soldiers directly to the location where the bodies were held in Khan Younis. The intelligence that pinpointed the exact location came, among other sources, from interrogations of captured terrorists. It was also revealed that the bodies were held in an underground tunnel, and the soldiers entered the tunnel, risking their lives to retrieve the bodies. There were no casualties among our forces during the rescue operation.
After the rescue, the bodies were brought to Israel in an armoured personnel carrier and then transferred to the Forensic Institute for identification, a process that lasted several hours. At the end of the process, the findings were confirmed and unequivocal—these were indeed the bodies of the Israeli hostages.