Israeli security forces recovered the body of slain hostage Yair Yaakov and a second captive from the Khan Yunis area of the southern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Wednesday evening.
“The body of Yair Yaakov, as well as the body of another hostage, who were held hostage for 613 days in Gaza, have been recovered in a joint IDF and ISA military operation,” stated the IDF, using the acronym for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) internal security service.
The name of the second slain hostage whose remains were recovered has yet to be publicly identified, pending notification of the family.
Yaakov was “brutally murdered by gunfire while heroically holding the door of the safe room in his home, trying to protect his family” in the border village of Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He was 59 when he was killed, with the IDF confirming his death in February, 2024.
Yaakov’s children, Yagil and Or, were kidnapped along with his partner, Meirav Tal, the military said, noting that the three were redeemed from terror captivity during the November, 2023 ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
The operation was conducted on Wednesday by the IDF’s 36th Division, aka the Rage Formation, operating under its Southern Command. It was launched following precise intelligence gathered by the military’s task force for hostages, the Military Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet.
After their recovery from the Strip, the bodies were transferred to the National Center of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv for full identification. The Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters then notified the victims’ families and the Nir Oz community.
The remains of a Thai agriculture worker who was kidnapped by terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, were recovered Saturday in a special operation carried out in Rafah by the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).
Nattapong Pinta, 36, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, situated near the Gaza Strip.
Pinta’s body was recovered due to “precise intelligence” obtained from a terrorist who was interrogated by the Shin Bet, along with information gathered by the Hostage Task Force in the IDF Intelligence Directorate.
He was murdered shortly after the war broke out by the Mujahideen Brigades (“Kataeb al-Mujahideen”), a Palestinian terrorist organization that was also responsible for the murder at Nir Oz of US citizen Judi Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gadi Haggai, and the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her children Kfir and Ariel.
The Haggais’ bodies were also retrieved last week.
The operation involved forces from the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps.
Pinta’s wife and son in Thailand were informed on June 7 by the Thai embassy in Israel and by Israel’s coordinator for hostages, Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “Nattapong came from Thailand to Israel to work in agriculture, seeking to build a better future for himself and his family, and was brutally murdered in captivity.
“I send my heartfelt condolences to his wife, his young son and his family. I thank our brave fighters who operate time and again under fire to bring back all the hostages, out of a deep moral commitment.”
The Haggais were on their regular morning walk on their kibbutz, Nir Oz, when terrorists attacked on Oct. 7. More than a quarter of their community of 400 was slain or taken as hostages to Gaza.
Weinstein Haggai made an emergency call after the couple was ambushed but no one was able to reach them.
Their children saw footage of their father’s body being dragged into Gaza.
The Haggais’ deaths were confirmed based on Israeli intelligence in December, 2023.
Haggai, 72 at the time of his death, was a chef and musician whose flute playing helped woo his wife when she volunteered on the kibbutz in the 1970s.
Weinstein Haggai, who was 70, was born in New York and raised in Toronto before moving to Israel as a young adult, where she wrote poetry and taught English. The couple had four children and seven grandchildren.
“We welcome the closure that we have been granted and the return for burial of our loved ones, who went out for a walk on that Black Sabbath morning and never came back,” their family said in a statement on June 5.
The retrieval, which Israeli officials said took place in an operation by the IDF and the Shin Bet security service based on information secured in interrogations, brings the number of hostages in Gaza to 56, of whom 20 are thought to be alive.
Fifty-three hostages remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip — 613 days after the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel believes that at least 20 of the captives are still alive.
