"With heavy hearts, we, the kibbutz members, have this morning received the news of the murder of our dear friend Shlomo Mantzur, 86 years old, who was kidnapped from his home in the kibbutz Kissufim during the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023", the message reads.
According to Israeli reports, he was killed already then, the same day, but his remains have been held in Gaza since then. Mantzur was born in Iraq, but his family is said to have fled from there to Israel after surviving a pogrom in Baghdad in 1941, where hundreds of people in the city's Jewish minority group were killed.
Terror-stamped Hamas kidnapped around 250 people during the large-scale attack in October last year. 130 of them have been released in exchanges that have taken place in connection with agreements on ceasefire in the ongoing war, several in the ongoing ceasefire where more exchanges are planned.
Hamas killed around 1,100 people, most of them civilians, in the attacks on October 7, 2023. It became the starting shot for the war where Israel has bombed large parts of the Gaza Strip. At least 47,000 people have been killed there during the war, according to ongoing assessments by the authorities in Gaza.
Around 250 people were kidnapped by the Islamist movement Hamas during its large-scale attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023. So far, 130 of them have been released, according to a compilation by the news agency AP.
40 of them have been found dead by Israeli forces in connection with ground offensives in Gaza. Eight have been found alive and brought back to Israel.
Among those who have been released are a total of 21 people who were released during the first phase of the ongoing ceasefire, when five exchanges took place against over 730 Palestinians who were imprisoned in Israeli prisons or detained in Gaza during the war. In total, Hamas has committed to releasing 33 hostages and Israel nearly 2,000 prisoners and detainees.
Thus, Hamas is estimated to still have over 70 hostages. But Israel fears that over 30 of them are dead.
