Israeli troops recover body of hostage from Gaza’s Khan Younis, military says

Israeli commandos have recovered the body of a hostage held in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said on Saturday, three months after he pleaded for his release in a video issued by his Palestinian Islamic Jihad captors.
Elad Katzir, a 47-year-old farmer from Kibbutz Nir Oz, was among 253 people dragged into Gaza during an Oct. 7 cross-border rampage by Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen that triggered Israel’s ongoing offensive in the enclave.
Katzir was killed by Islamic Jihad, the military statement said, citing intelligence information which it did not detail.
Katzir’s father, Avraham, was among some 1,200 people killed in Israel on Oct. 7, according to official tallies, while his mother Hanna was also taken hostage but freed in November under a ceasefire with Hamas, Gaza’s dominant Islamist movement.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators have been trying, so far fruitlessly, to secure another truce that might return some of the 129 remaining hostages. Hamas wants any deal to end the war, which Gaza health officials say has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians. But Israel intends to fight on until Hamas falls.