The body of an Israeli soldier who was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7, was recovered by the military from the southern Gaza Strip overnight, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, two soldiers were killed during fighting in Gaza in the past day, the military said.
At the request of the family, the name of the slain soldier who was recovered from Gaza overnight was not immediately permitted for publication.
The operation to recover the body of the soldier was carried out by the IDF’s 162nd Division, along with the Shin Bet security agency.
The IDF said that it had been working for months to track down the location of the body of the soldier. Information on the location came in part from a Shin Bet interrogation of a Gazan terror suspect, a military source said.
According to military sources, the body of the soldier was not found in a tunnel, and the operation in southern Gaza was unrelated to the rescue of hostage Farhan al-Qadi on Tuesday morning.
Following the overnight operation, 103 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 31 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Earlier Wednesday, the IDF announced the deaths of two soldiers who were killed in the ongoing fighting in the Strip.
Master Sgt. (res.) Yohay Hay Glam, 32, of the Jerusalem Brigade’s 6310th Battalion, from Netanya, was killed during fighting in central Gaza on Wednesday, and Staff Sgt. Amit Friedman, 19, of the Nahal Brigade’s 932nd Battalion, from Or Yehuda, was killed in the Strip’s south on Tuesday.
Their deaths brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 342.
Also Wednesday, the IDF said a three-kilometer-long (1.86 miles) Hamas tunnel located in the Netzarim Corridor area of the central Gaza Strip was recently demolished by combat engineers.
The tunnel had been located and later demolished by the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, along with reservists of the Jerusalem Brigade, which is currently stationed in the corridor.
According to the IDF, part of the tunnel was destroyed during the 2014 Gaza war, but over the years Hamas worked to rebuild it.
The tunnel did not cross into Israeli territory, the military clarified.
The IDF released footage of the tunnel being blown up.
Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza following the terror group’s onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, during which it killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, 105 of whom are believed to still be held in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.