Israel says elderly hostage dead in Gaza

Israel announced on Tuesday the death of an elderly Israeli hostage, saying Hamas militants killed him during their October 2023 attack and that his body remains in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it notified the family of Shlomo Mansour, 85 at the time of the attack, of his death based on "intelligence gathered in recent months".

"Today, IDF (military) representatives informed the family of Shlomo Mansur, who was brutally abducted from Kibbutz Kissufim into the Gaza Strip, that he was murdered by the Hamas terrorist organisation on October 7, 2023, and that his body is being held hostage in the Gaza Strip," the military said in a statement.


Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X that Mansour had been "murdered on October 7 by the terrorist organisation Hamas and whose body is being held in Gaza".

His wife, Mazal Mansour, managed to escape the attack. They have five children and 12 grandchildren.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli campaign group, said Mansour was born in Baghdad and survived the Farhud pogrom, a 1941 attack on Iraq's Jewish community, before immigrating to Israel with his family at 13.

"This is one of the most difficult days in the history of our kibbutz," the Kissufim community said in a statement.

"Shlomo was much more than a community member to us -- he was a father, grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart of Kissufim.

"Our hearts are broken that we couldn't bring him back to us alive".

- 'Will not be silent' -
The kibbutz called on the Israeli government and world leaders "to continue acting with determination to bring back all the hostages, both the living and the dead, and not to allow painful stories like Shlomo's to repeat themselves".

His family, describing him as a "man of high morals and values," also urged Israeli authorities to secure the release of all hostages still held in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and his wife, Sara, "share in the family's deep mourning".

"We will not rest and will not be silent until he is returned to a burial in Israel. We will continue to act with determination and without pause until we return all of our hostages -- both the living and the fallen," he said.

A fragile ceasefire reached last month between Hamas and Israel appeared strained on Tuesday, a day after Hamas threatened to postpone the release of Israeli hostages scheduled for Saturday.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump warned that "all hell" would break loose if every Israeli hostage is not released from Gaza within the coming days, a threat Hamas said "further complicates matters".

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 that Israeli officials say are dead.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the war has killed at least 48,219 people in the territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.