Israeli troops find bodies of people kidnapped by Hamas in first Gaza raid

According to local media and Israel’s public radio and television stations, during their incursion into the Gaza Strip this Friday, Israeli troops found an unknown number of bodies and objects belonging to people kidnapped by Hamas that could help with the search for the hostages.

The media did not report how many bodies were recovered, but they did detail that the bodies found were transferred to Israeli territory.

The operation, according to The Jerusalem Post (JP), was carried out by the 7th Armored Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and is the first incursion into Gaza since the war began almost a week ago.

“The operation was carried out jointly by infantry and armored units which took out a Hamas cell that fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli territory,” JP reported.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari spoke about the operation without giving further details.

“The forces located findings that may help in the effort to locate the missing,” Hagari said. “We will continue to make every effort to find every detail about the missing and hostages.”

The special operation, which precedes a massive ground incursion by Israeli forces, comes amid great concern about the state of civilians kidnapped in Gaza after Hamas declared this Friday that 13 of the hostages had allegedly been killed by Israeli airstrikes.

A video recorded by Hamas fighters and released by the IDF shows a group of children kidnapped by the terrorists. The minors captured in the video are among more than 120 hostages confirmed by Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to call on Palestinians to flee northern Gaza in the face of an imminent massive ground raid. It is estimated that 1.1 million civilians live in that area of the Gaza Strip.

Two Hamas leaders killed

Air strikes have continued today on both Israel and Gaza. Israelis have been forced to take shelter for the seventh consecutive day due to missile attacks.

An Israeli drone strike succeeded in eliminating one of the leaders of the Oct. 7 attacks. "All Hamas terrorists will meet the same fate," Israel's forces said in reporting the death of Ali Qadi, who, they said, was one of the commanders of the Nujba unit. Qadi had been arrested in 2005 for the kidnapping and murder of Israeli civilians but was later released in a prisoner exchange.

The IDF also claimed to have eliminated Merad Abu Merad, another leader responsible for the bombings that started the war. The head of Hamas' air team in Gaza was killed, they claim, during strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday, which then continued to target the Nujba group.

Evacuation of Americans

This Saturday, it was also reported that the United States asked its citizens to head towards the Rafah crossing with Egypt in anticipation of a potential reopening of the crossing to allow foreigners to leave. This was reported by Axios, which had access to the notification from the State Department.

According to the news outlet, there are more than 500 Americans and "hundreds of other foreign nationals in Gaza, including UN workers, members of non-governmental organizations and journalists, according to U.S. and Israeli officials."

"U.S. officials say that if the crossing reopens, it will be on short notice and for a short period of time. Therefore, American citizens, especially those in Gaza City, should try and go to more southern parts of the enclave as quickly as possible," Axios detailed.

Earlier it was learned that the first flight with Americans evacuated from Israel landed in Athens. The information was confirmed by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. "A big thank you to everyone involved in making this possible. Our work continues," Miller wrote on X (formerly Twitter).