Netanyahu says he brought all the October 7 hostages home. These are the stories of those who didn’t come back alive

The strike plan called for hitting a vast underground complex in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, comprised of dozens of rooms and a network of interconnecting tunnels. Instead of a dozen bombs, the Israeli military had decided to drop just two munitions, each aimed at a single room. The objective: killing Muhammad Shabaneh, the commander of Hamas’ Rafah Brigade.

On May 24, 2024, the bombs hit their marks. But instead of Shabaneh, two Israeli hostages were killed.

Two senior Israeli sources said the military had assessed there were no hostages in that part of the complex. Months later, when Israeli ground troops reached the site, they found the bodies of Youssef and Hamza Ziyadne, an Israeli Bedouin father and son who had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

During the deadliest day in the history of the state of Israel, a total of 251 hostages were abducted and taken into Gaza by Hamas-led militants. More than 1,200 people – mostly civilians – were killed in the terror attack. It took two years of war and three ceasefire agreements to return the hostages.

Three years later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that he defied the odds and brought all the hostages back home.

“We brought back every last one of them,” Netanyahu boasted at the UN General Assembly last month. Facing elections in three weeks, Netanyahu has repeated that statement on multiple occasions, rarely if ever mentioning that not all of the hostages returned home alive.

“The fate of every person touches the fibers of our soul, and therefore we invested unceasing effort until we brought back all our hostages, down to the last of them,” he said on Monday, during the official October 7 memorial ceremonies.

Debbie Hill/AFP/Getty Images

The Ziyadnes are among 40 hostages taken into Gaza alive who were killed or died in captivity, roughly one in five of the 206 abducted alive. Hamas held them in tunnels and hideaways where, according to released hostages, they were abused, starved, chained and beaten.

Many were killed by their captors. Others succumbed to their wounds or the conditions endured in captivity. Some died in Israeli strikes and operations, or in the shadow of Israeli decisions. For a few, the full circumstances may never be known.

This account of how those 40 hostages were killed or died in captivity – and why some were not released before their deaths – is based on conversations with dozens of hostage families, as well as Israeli military and government officials who helped piece together their stories.

Nearly half were killed by their captors, according to Israeli military officials and forensic evidence reviewed by their families. Among them were 4-year-old Ariel Bibas and his brother, nine-month-old Kfir, who the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said were killed by their captors’ “bare hands,” while 68-year-old Itzhak Elgarat was tortured to death, according to a former hostage and autopsy results. Hamas did not respond to CNN’s request for comment; Palestinian Islamic Jihad said it “does not kill captives.”

At least 11 were killed directly by Israeli military fire or in Israeli ground operations: three young men who managed to escape and were shot by troops who mistook them for Palestinian militants , a shooting the IDF Chief of the General Staff concluded should not have been carried out; a 25-year-old named Sahar Baruch who was killed in a failed rescue operation; several hostages who were killed by Israeli bombs.

Some of the killings can be linked to nearby Israeli military activity. When the ground offensive began on October 27, 2023, Israeli military officials said Hamas issued a standing order: If Israeli forces approach, move the hostages, and if it’s impossible – kill them.

The hostages in Gaza were very aware of the dangers associated with the Israeli military’s presence. Eli Sharabi, who published his firsthand account of captivity in his book “Hostage,” wrote, “That’s what we fear: that IDF commandos will try to enter the tunnel to rescue us by force. Because we know it would never work, and it’d be the end. The end of us. And the end of them.”

Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

A CNN review of the circumstances of the 40 hostages’ deaths found that at least 24 – more than half – can be traced back to Israeli military actions, including Israeli strikes and ground maneuvers that led to captors killing their hostages.

In every case of a hostage killed by or in proximity to Israeli fire, the military says it had no prior knowledge they were there.

The IDF declined to discuss specific cases, citing the privacy of hostage families, but said “all possible measures were taken to avoid putting (the hostages) at risk,” and noted the challenges posed by “a dense and complex civilian environment.”

“To the extent that any harm occurred during the complex fighting, it was unintentional and occurred under operational constraints on the ground,” the IDF said in a statement. “The hostages were abducted and held captive by the Hamas terrorist organization, which bore sole responsibility for the conditions of their captivity.”

(The Hostages and Missing Families Forum counts 46 living hostages who died in Gaza, but CNN’s investigation found six of those hostages were killed as part of the October 7 attack.)

A few hours after the October 7 attack began, Netanyahu declared unequivocally, “We are at war.” That evening, his cabinet set its main goal – destroying the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The ensuing three years of war killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry there.

Bringing back the hostages was not part of the original war aims, two Israeli officials said. About a week later, as the scope of abductions became clear, the cabinet added another goal: creating the conditions for their return.

The military faced an unprecedented challenge: dense urban combat, some 250 hostages scattered above and below ground and two objectives that appeared to pull in opposite directions. Destroying Hamas would require targeting its leadership. But Hamas, Israeli officials said, kept many hostages close to their senior commanders, using them as “human shields” and making every strike a gamble.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

The working theory, the officials told CNN, was that most hostages would come home through deals, not rescues, and that military pressure was the only way to bring Hamas to the table. (A total of eight hostages would be rescued in IDF operations.) One senior official called it “synergy.”

“The ground maneuver will pressure Hamas to release the hostages, and the more hostages we bring home, the easier it will be to maneuver afterwards,” the official reasoned.

But that approach also carried inherent risk for the hostages, some of whom would later be killed by Israeli strikes or gunfire.

“We never had 100% intelligence coverage about everyone,” a senior military official said. Hamas constantly moved the captives, so “the picture kept shifting.”

Within days of October 7, the military had formed a special hostage task force, led by Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon. Hundreds of soldiers were assigned to a 24/7 mechanism, linking the air force, intelligence and the IDF’s Southern Command to protect the hostages from Israel’s own offensive. Its main tool was a system of restricted zones around suspected hostage locations, known as “polygons,” drawn broadly at first. These polygons narrowed as intelligence improved; they expanded again after fatal mishaps.

Strikes on significant targets, including Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and hostage rescue operations, were regularly delayed or called off over concerns for hostage safety, three officials said.

Still, as a senior official acknowledged, “It was not without risks and there are places where we failed.”

Noam Galai/Getty Images

In Khan Younis, the IDF thought it knew where the hostages were. Then, it didn’t.

In the first weeks of the war, about 20 hostages were believed to have been held in a huge underground compound, known to the IDF as “the kingdom.” Sources said a polygon had been established there to ensure no Israeli strikes or ground operations endangered the hostages.

But after the first ceasefire collapsed in December 2023, the Israeli military launched a major ground offensive in Khan Younis, and the military soon lost track of the hostages.

The army believed they had been taken south. It did not know some had been moved to Khan Younis’ northern Hamad City neighborhood.

On February 14, 2024, the air force struck a tunnel in that neighborhood, targeting two senior Hamas commanders, unaware of six hostages inside. Only in May did the army grasp what had happened, a military official said.

When the bodies were recovered in August, an autopsy found gunshot wounds in all six bodies but could not establish the cause of death. Their captors had also been found dead in the same tunnel, without wounds. Officials believe they were suffocated by the toxins released by the bombs; they cannot rule out the possibility that the hostages were killed by the gases and shot afterwards.

Yuval Dancyg, whose father, Alex, was among the dead, says he still doesn’t understand how the army lost track of the hostages in the first place. He said he warned officers in real time that the Khan Younis offensive would kill his father.

“They told me not to worry, that they know where he is and they have enough information,” he told CNN. He said the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, later acknowledged in a private meeting that the army lacked sufficient information before approving the strike and took responsibility for the fatal error.

The army should have been more careful, Dancyg says, but he places most of the blame elsewhere.

“The ones that are responsible for what happened to them, first of all, is Hamas,” he said.

“But my government could and should have let the hostages out way before. When you have a war with citizens underground and you decide that the war is the most important thing… hostages will get killed.”

Amir Levy/Getty Images

Several senior Israeli officials who were involved in the decision- making have said publicly that more hostages would have come home alive if not for politics.

Alon, the general who led the hostage task force, said last week the war “was too long” and could have ended at least a year earlier. Speaking at the Washington Institute, he said Israel could have made the same strategic achievements, and “maybe get some hostages that got killed or murdered during captivity back home alive.”

Current and former Israeli officials said Netanyahu frequently stalled progress on the negotiating track and limited his negotiators’ mandate, barring them from discussing an end-of-war deal until the summer of 2025.

Dror Shalom, a former senior defense ministry official, said in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, “We could have returned dozens of hostages, but because of delays in the process and the rejection of the deals, they simply did not return to us.”

The most critical delay, military officials said, came in the spring and summer of 2024.

In late May, Netanyahu and his limited security cabinet approved a three-phase proposal that would begin with a six-week ceasefire and the release of 33 elderly and wounded hostages before leading to the release of all others and an end of the war.

Then-US President Joe Biden announced the proposal days later, and the United Nations Security Council endorsed it.

Hamas took its time answering, two Israeli officials said, but by early July it had signaled it would agree to the May framework, with minor reservations.

That’s when Netanyahu decided to harden Israel’s position, military officials said, inserting new demands such as continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border. His security chiefs disagreed, warning the delay could endanger the hostages. The demand had operational and strategic logic, the officials said, but it disrupted what they say was “almost a done deal.”

Netanyahu stuck to his new demands. His far-right political allies, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, were threatening to withdraw their support and topple the government if Netanyahu moved forward with the deal and ended the war.

The Prime Minister’s Office has not responded after CNN reached out multiple times.

“There could have been a deal in July,” said Oren Setter, a retired IDF brigadier general who served as deputy director for strategy and negotiations at the Hostages Taskforce. “Hamas was under a lot of pressure and was willing to negotiate with flexibility,” he told CNN. “The fact that we stayed on that Philadelphi issue for so long lost us the opportunity.”

“We knew that the price could be the life of the hostages,” he added.

A few weeks later, that price had names.

By August 2024, Israeli troops had spent months advancing through Rafah and were concentrating on the tunnels under the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood, where Hamas commanders were believed to be hiding. There was no concrete intelligence of hostages in the area, two officials said, and the IDF’s subsequent investigation put the likelihood of hostages being there as “medium to low.”

On August 27, troops found a Bedouin Israeli hostage, Farhan Al-Qadi, alone in a tunnel. He reported recently hearing a woman speaking Hebrew nearby, saying “good morning.”

After a 24-hour pause in operations, Israeli troops pressed on in the tunnel system.

On August 31, soldiers found six bodies in a tunnel just a few hundred meters away. They had been shot, likely two days earlier, the IDF said.

The army’s official investigation concluded they were murdered by their captors, and that the Israeli maneuver, “although gradual and cautious, had a circumstantial influence” on their execution. Officials say five of the six were slated for release under the May framework, had it been agreed to.

Gil Cohen-Magen/Reuters

One was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American citizen kidnapped from the Nova music festival. His mother, Rachel, declines to assign blame. “Pointing fingers does not bring Hersh back, and does not ease my pain,” she said. The bodies of the six, she told CNN, came back skeletal and filthy. They had been starved and tortured.

Widely known as the “Beautiful Six,” they were the last hostages to die in captivity. Israeli officials say that by then, the working methods and intelligence coverage had dramatically improved. But the war went on for more than a year.

The deadlock broke briefly after US President Donald Trump’s reelection: in January 2025, a three-phase ceasefire took effect. Its terms were nearly identical to the deal that was on the verge of being approved the previous summer.

Over the ceasefire’s first six weeks, 30 living hostages and eight deceased were released. Then the truce collapsed and Israel went back to war.

The last 20 living hostages walked free on October 13, 2025 under Trump’s 20-point peace plan. On January 26, 2026, Israel recovered the remains of the last deceased Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, and the count was complete.

But when political leaders say they brought all the hostages home, Rachel Goldberg-Polin asks them to stop. “Please don’t say that you brought him home… Hersh is buried in the ground five miles from my home, but Hersh never came back to my home.”

CNN’s Zeena Saifi and Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this report.

袭击计划的目标是加沙南部城市拉法的一处庞大地下建筑群，该建筑群由数十个房间和相互连接的隧道网络组成。以色列军方最终决定只投放两枚炸弹，而非原计划的十几枚，每枚炸弹都瞄准一个房间。此次行动的目标是：击毙哈马斯拉法旅指挥官穆罕默德·沙巴内。

2024年5月24日，炸弹击中了目标。但沙巴内赫遇难的不是她，而是两名以色列人质。

两名以色列高级消息人士称，军方评估认为该建筑群内无人质。数月后，当以色列地面部队抵达现场时，发现了优素福·齐亚德内和哈姆扎·齐亚德内的遗体。这对以色列贝都因父子于2023年10月7日被哈马斯绑架。

在以色列历史上最惨烈的一天，共有251名人质被哈马斯领导的武装分子绑架并带到加沙地带。超过1200人——其中大部分是平民——在这次恐怖袭击中丧生。经过两年的战争和三次停火协议，人质最终得以获释。

三年后，以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡坚称，他克服重重困难，将所有人质带回了家。

“我们把他们一个不剩都带回来了，”内塔尼亚胡上个月在联合国大会上吹嘘道。距离大选还有三周，内塔尼亚胡多次重复这一说法，却几乎从未提及并非所有人质都活着回家。

“每个人的命运都触动着我们的灵魂，因此我们投入了不懈的努力，直到把所有人质都救回来，一个也不放过，”他在周一举行的10月7日官方纪念仪式上说道。

Debbie Hill/AFP/Getty Images

齐亚德内一家是40名被活着带入加沙的人质之一，他们要么被杀害，要么死于囚禁之中，约占206名被活捉人质的五分之一。据获释人质称，哈马斯将他们关押在隧道和藏身处，在那里他们遭受虐待、挨饿、被铁链锁住和殴打。

许多人被俘虏者杀害。其他人则因伤势过重或饱受囚禁之苦而亡。一些人死于以色列的空袭和军事行动，或死于以色列的决策阴影之下。至于少数人的死因，或许永远不得而知。

本文讲述了 40 名人质如何被杀害或在被囚禁期间死亡，以及为什么有些人在死前没有被释放。文章基于与数十名人质家属的谈话，以及帮助拼凑出他们故事的以色列军方和政府官员的谈话。

据以色列军方官员和家属审查的法医证据显示，近一半人质被俘虏者杀害。其中包括4岁的阿里埃尔·比巴斯和他的弟弟，9个月大的基菲尔，以色列国防军称他们是被俘虏者“徒手”杀害的；而据一名前人质和尸检结果显示，68岁的伊扎克·埃尔加拉特是被折磨致死的。哈马斯没有回应CNN的置评请求；巴勒斯坦伊斯兰圣战组织则表示“不会杀害俘虏”。

至少有 11 人直接死于以色列军方的炮火或在以色列地面行动中丧生：三名成功逃脱的年轻人被误认为是巴勒斯坦武装分子的士兵射杀，以色列国防军总参谋长认为不应该进行这次枪击；一名 25 岁的 Sahar Baruch 在一次失败的营救行动中丧生；还有几名人质被以色列炸弹炸死。

部分杀戮事件可能与附近的以色列军事行动有关。2023年10月27日地面进攻开始时，以色列军方官员称，哈马斯曾下达一项指令：如果以色列军队靠近，就转移人质；如果无法转移，就杀死他们。

加沙的人质们非常清楚以色列军队的存在所带来的危险。埃利·沙拉比在他的著作《人质》中讲述了他被囚禁的亲身经历，他写道：“我们最害怕的就是以色列国防军突击队会强行进入隧道营救我们。因为我们知道这根本不可能，而且那将是我们的末日。我们的末日，也是他们的末日。”

巴沙尔·塔勒布/法新社/盖蒂图片社

CNN 对 40 名人质死亡情况的调查发现，至少 24 人（超过一半）的死亡可以追溯到以色列的军事行动，包括以色列的空袭和地面行动，导致绑匪杀害了人质。

在所有以色列军方炮火造成人质死亡或在其附近被以色列炮火击毙的案例中，军方都声称事先不知道人质在那里。

以色列国防军以保护人质家属隐私为由，拒绝讨论具体案件，但表示“已采取一切可能的措施避免使（人质）处于危险之中”，并指出“人口密集且复杂的平民环境”带来的挑战。

以色列国防军在一份声明中表示：“在复杂的战斗中，如果造成了任何伤害，那都是无意的，而且是在地面作战限制下发生的。人质是被哈马斯恐怖组织绑架和扣押的，哈马斯应对人质被扣押期间的状况负全部责任。”

（人质和失踪家属论坛统计，在加沙遇难的在世人质有46人，但CNN的调查发现，其中6名人质在10月7日的袭击中丧生。）

10月7日袭击发生几小时后，内塔尼亚胡明确宣布：“我们处于战争状态。”当晚，他的内阁确定了主要目标——摧毁哈马斯和伊斯兰圣战组织的军事和执政能力。据加沙卫生部统计，随后三年的战争导致超过7.4万名巴勒斯坦人在加沙丧生。

两名以色列官员表示，解救人质并非最初的战争目标。大约一周后，随着绑架事件的规模逐渐明朗，内阁又增加了一个目标：创造条件促成人质返回。

以色列军方面临前所未有的挑战：密集的城市巷战，约250名人质分散在地上地下，以及两个看似背道而驰的目标。摧毁哈马斯需要打击其领导层。但以色列官员表示，哈马斯将许多人质安置在高级指挥官附近，用作“人肉盾牌”，使得每一次打击都如同赌博。

罗南·祖伦/路透社

据官员向CNN透露，目前的设想是，大多数人质将通过协议而非营救行动获释，而军事压力是迫使哈马斯参与谈判的唯一途径。（最终，以色列国防军的行动成功解救了8名人质。）一位高级官员称之为“协同效应”。

“地面行动将迫使哈马斯释放人质，我们带回的人质越多，之后的行动就越容易，”这位官员解释道。

但这种做法也给质子们带来了固有的风险，其中一些人后来被以色列的袭击或枪击杀死。

一位高级军官表示：“我们从未掌握过所有人的100%情报。”哈马斯不断转移俘虏，因此“情况一直在变化”。

10月7日后的几天内，军方组建了一支由尼赞·阿隆少将领导的特别人质特遣队。数百名士兵被分配到一套全天候运作机制中，该机制将空军、情报部门和以色列国防军南方司令部联系起来，以保护人质免受以色列自身进攻的伤害。其主要手段是在疑似人质所在位置周围划定限制区，这些限制区被称为“多边形”，最初划定的范围较广。随着情报的完善，这些多边形的范围逐渐缩小​​；在发生致命事故后，范围又会再次扩大。

三名官员表示，出于对人质安全的考虑，对包括哈马斯军事首领穆罕默德·戴夫在内的重要目标的打击以及人质营救行动经常被推迟或取消。

不过，正如一位高级官员所承认的那样，“这并非没有风险，我们也有一些失败之处。”

Noam Galai/Getty Images

在汗尤尼斯，以色列国防军以为他们知道人质的下落。但后来，他们发现并不知道。

战争初期，据信约有20名人质被关押在一个巨大的地下建筑群中，以色列国防军称之为“王国”。消息人士称，那里设立了一个防御工事，以确保以色列的任何空袭或地面行动都不会危及人质的安全。

但 2023 年 12 月第一次停火破裂后，以色列军队在汗尤尼斯发动了大规模地面进攻，军方很快就失去了人质的踪迹。

军方认为他们已被押往南方，却不知道其中一些人已被转移到汗尤尼斯北部的哈马德城附近。

2024年2月14日，空军袭击了该地区的一条隧道，目标是两名哈马斯高级指挥官，却不知隧道内有六名人质。一位军方官员表示，直到5月份，军方才弄清发生了什么。

8月份找到尸体后，尸检发现六具尸体上都有枪伤，但无法确定死因。绑架他们的人也在同一隧道中被发现死亡，身上没有伤口。官员们认为他们是被炸弹释放的毒气窒息而死；但他们也不能排除人质先被毒气毒死后又被枪杀的可能性。

尤瓦尔·丹西格的父亲亚历克斯也在遇难者之列，他说他至今仍不明白军队当初是如何弄丢人质的。他说他曾实时警告军官，汗尤尼斯战役会夺走他父亲的生命。

“他们告诉我不用担心，他们知道他在哪里，而且掌握了足够的信息，”他告诉CNN。他说，以色列国防军总参谋长赫尔齐·哈勒维中将后来在一次私人会议上承认，军方在批准这次袭击之前缺乏足够的信息，并承担了这一致命错误的责任。

丹西格说，军队本应更加谨慎，但他认为大部分责任在于其他方面。

他说：“首先，要对他们遭遇的一切负责的是哈马斯。”

“但是我的政府本来可以而且应该更早释放人质。当你发动一场让民众躲入地下的战争，并且你认为战争才是最重要的……人质就会被杀害。”

Amir Levy/Getty Images

参与决策的几位以色列高级官员公开表示，如果不是政治因素，更多的人质本可以活着回家。

领导人质救援特遣队的阿隆将军上周表示，这场战争“持续时间太长”，本可以至少提前一年结束。他在华盛顿研究所发表讲话时说，以色列本可以取得同样的战略成就，“甚至可能让一些在被俘期间丧生或遇害的人质活着回家”。

现任和前任以色列官员表示，内塔尼亚胡经常阻挠谈判进程，并限制其谈判代表的授权，禁止他们在 2025 年夏季之前讨论结束战争的协议。

国防部前高级官员德罗尔·沙洛姆在接受《新消息报》采访时表示：“我们本来可以释放数十名人质，但由于程序延误和协议被拒绝，他们根本没有回到我们身边。”

军方官员表示，最严重的延误发生在 2024 年春季和夏季。

5 月下旬，内塔尼亚胡及其有限的安全内阁批准了一项分三阶段进行的提案，该提案将首先进行为期六周的停火，并释放 33 名年老体弱和受伤的人质，然后再释放所有其他人质并结束战争。

几天后，时任美国总统乔·拜登宣布了这项提议，联合国安理会也予以认可。

两名以色列官员表示，哈马斯花了很长时间才作出回应，但到7月初，它已表示将同意5月份的框架协议，只是提出了一些小的保留意见。

军方官员表示，正是在那时，内塔尼亚胡决定加强以色列的立场，提出新的要求，例如继续由以色列控制加沙-埃及边境的费城走廊。他的安全部门负责人对此表示反对，并警告说拖延可能会危及人质的安全。官员们表示，这一要求在作战和战略上都说得通，但它破坏了他们所说的“几乎已经达成的协议”。

内塔尼亚胡坚持他的新要求。他的极右翼政治盟友伊塔马尔·本·格维尔和贝扎莱尔·斯莫特里奇威胁说，如果内塔尼亚胡推进协议并结束战争，他们将撤回支持并推翻政府。

CNN多次联系总理办公室，但均未得到回应。

“本来7月份就能达成协议，”以色列国防军退役准将奥伦·塞特尔说道，他曾担任人质特遣部队战略与谈判副主任。“哈马斯当时压力很大，也愿意灵活谈判，”他告诉CNN。“我们因为在费城问题上纠缠太久而错失了良机。”

“我们知道，代价可能是人质的生命，”他补充道。

几周后，这个价格有了名字。

到2024年8月，以色列军队已在拉法推进数月，并将重点放在泰勒苏丹街区下方的地道上，据信哈马斯指挥官藏身于此。两名官员表示，当时没有确凿情报显示该地区有人质，而以色列国防军随后的调查也认为该地区有人质的可能性“中等偏低”。

8月27日，以色列士兵在一条隧道中发现了一名独自一人的贝都因人质法尔汉·卡迪。他曾报告说，最近听到附近有一名女子用希伯来语说“早上好”。

在暂停行动 24 小时后，以色列军队继续在隧道系统中推进。

8月31日，士兵们在距离事发地点仅几百米的一条隧道内发现了六具尸体。以色列国防军称，他们是被枪杀的，很可能是在两天前。

军方官方调查结论是，他们被俘虏者杀害，以色列的行动“虽然循序渐进且谨慎，但对他们的处决产生了间接影响”。官员称，如果五月份的框架协议获得通过，这六人中有五人原本应该获释。

吉尔·科恩-马根/路透社

其中一人是23岁的以色列裔美国公民赫什·戈德堡-波林，他在诺瓦音乐节上被绑架。他的母亲瑞秋拒绝指责任何人。“互相指责并不能让赫什复活，也无法减轻我的痛苦，”她说。她告诉CNN，六名遇难者的遗体被送来时已骨瘦如柴，肮脏不堪。他们曾遭受饥饿和酷刑。

她们被世人称为“美丽六人组”，是最后一批在囚禁中丧生的被俘人质。以色列官员表示，到那时，工作方法和情报覆盖范围已显著改善。但这场战争持续了一年多。

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普连任后，僵局曾短暂打破：2025年1月，一项分三阶段实施的停火协议生效。该协议的条款与前一年夏天即将获得批准的协议几乎完全相同。

停火协议生效后的前六周，30名活着的被扣押人质和8名遇难者获释。之后停火协议破裂，以色列重返战争。

根据特朗普的20点和平计划，最后20名在世人质于2025年10月13日获释。2026年1月26日，以色列找回了最后一名遇难以色列人质兰·格维利的遗体，至此，人质清点工作全部完成。

但当政治领导人声称他们已将所有人质带回家时，瑞秋·戈德堡-波林要求他们停止这种说法。“请不要说你们把他带回家了……赫什被埋在我家五英里外的地下，但他再也没有回到我家。”

CNN的Zeena Saifi和Ibrahim Dahman对本报道亦有贡献。