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By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
According to reports and DNA evidence, the six hostages who were executed in late August were used as human shields by Hamas leader and October 7th mastermind Yahya Sinwar, who was killed last week.
Sinwar was eliminated by chance during an IDF operation in Rafah, not far away from where the six hostages were killed by their captors.
The names of the six slain hostages are Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi.
When the IDF recovered the bodies of the hostages on August 31, they also discovered DNA from Sinwar indicating he had been in the area at some point between August 21 and August 27.
Reports from early in the war that Sinwar was hiding in Gaza tunnels and using hostages as human shields, and the DNA, location, and reports connect the six slain hostages to Sinwar.
The IDF had opportunities to assassinate Sinwar earlier in the war, but his use of hostages as human shields proved an obstacle to these operations.
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The reason Sinwar was discovered last week unaccompanied by hostages was due to the fact that the six had been killed, and their severely weakened conditions were likely a factor in their not being forced to travel with him.
The hostages subsisted for months on only energy bars until they were too weak to move alongside Sinwar and were executed.
The terrorist captors moved many of the hostages to Rafah following the liberation of 105 of them in November because the IDF had not yet operated in the area close to the Egyptian border.
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The six hostages were confined to a tunnel three stories or 20 meters below ground, with their captors living above.
On August 21, the IDF, acting on intelligence Sinwar was in the area, battled with 26 terrorists, killing and wounding most of them, among them those who had been guarding the hostages.
When the dead captors were replaced, the new captors suspected the IDF was attacking them again and decided to execute the six hostages.
