The six Israeli hostages whose bodies were found Saturday had been murdered by Hamas in a tunnel in Rafah, in Gaza, underneath a children’s room, with a tunnel shaft surrounded by stuffed animals and Disney cartoons.
The revelation Wednesday by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is just the latest shocking detail about the horrific conditions in which the hostages were kept — and the abuse of children as human shields by Hamas terrorists.
The IDF said in a statement:
The shaft leading to the tunnel in which the bodies of the hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and MSG Ori Danino were recovered from was located next to stuffed animals and wall art of cartoon characters in a children’s play area.
The troops of the 162nd Division and the ISA located the shaft leading to the tunnel in an area surrounded by the enemy and extensively booby-trapped. This is a further example of how Hamas abuses civilian areas to hold hostages and carry out its terrorist activities.
IDF soldiers have frequently found tunnel shafts in children’s rooms in Gaza, and weapons stored near schools.
There is evidence that the hostages were starved. One hostage, 24-year-old Eden Yerushalmi, was found to have weighed only 79 pounds at the time of her death, having lost 22 pounds over the course of 11 months of captivity.
