Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza, where they were apparently killed not long before Israeli troops reached them, the military said on Sunday.
"According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them," military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing.
Days earlier, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel, was rescued about a kilometer away, the military said.