4 more hostages are dead in Gaza, Israel declares

JERUSALEM — Four more hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 were declared dead Monday by the Israeli military — including three older adults seen in a Hamas terrorist video begging to be released.

About 80 hostages in Gaza are believed to be alive, alongside the remains of 43 others.

In the days since the Biden administration announced a cease-fire proposal Friday, Israel has seen some of its largest protests calling on the government to bring them home. Israeli leadership has appeared to brush aside the President Joe Biden’s proposal, vowing to keep conducting military operations against Hamas until the terrorist group is destroyed.

All four of the men declared dead Monday night — Nadav Popplewell, Amiram Cooper, Yoram Metzger and Haim Peri — were kidnapped and taken into Gaza still alive, according to the Hostages Forum, a grassroots group representing the families of the hostages.

“It is time to end this cycle of sacrifice and neglect,” the group wrote in a statement following the announcement. “Their murder in captivity is a mark of disgrace and a sad reflection on the significance of delaying previous deals.” The group called on the government to immediately approve the new cease-fire plan.

About 100 captives were released during a weeklong exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in November. Three of the men declared dead Monday had female relatives who were released during the exchange.

Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the four hostages were killed while they were together, during the army’s operation in Khan Younis in central Gaza. He said the four were killed months ago, but that recent operations allowed the military to gather enough intelligence to pronounce them dead. Their bodies are still being held by Hamas.

“We are checking all of the options. There are a lot of questions,” he said.

Cooper, Metzger and Peri were all age 80 or older. They appeared in a video in December released by Hamas under the title, “Don’t let us grow old here.” In the video, the three men appear gaunt, wearing thin white T-shirts.

“We are the generation who built the foundation for the state of Israel,” Haim Peri says, noting that all the men have chronic illnesses. “We do not understand why we have been abandoned here.”

Hamas claimed in May that the other hostage pronounced deceased, Nadav Popplewell, died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike, but provided no evidence. Popplewell was over 50.

Cooper was an economist and one of the founders of kibbutz Nir Oz, according to the hostages forum. Metzger helped to found the kibbutz winery and Peri built the community’s art gallery and sculpture garden.

Nir Oz was among the hardest-hit towns near the border with Gaza during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, when Palestinian terrorists stormed Israel, killing some 1,200 people and hauling around 250 hostages back to Gaza.

The military said Monday that the decision to pronounce the men dead was based on intelligence and confirmed by health officials and Israel’s chief rabbi.

The news late Monday came after an announcement earlier in the day that the body of a presumed hostage, Dolev Yehud, 35, was found in a community near the Gaza border that Hamas terrorists had attacked on Oct. 7. Yehud was thought to be among scores of hostages held in Gaza until Monday, when the military announced the discovery of his body and said he had been killed in the initial attack.

Israeli bombardments and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israel has been expanding its offensive in the southern city of Rafah, once the main hub of humanitarian aid operations.