A Palestinian official of her Hamas he told AFP today Sunday that “some” of them six hostages whose bodies were found on Saturday by Israeli army “he was part of the list of hostages to be released that had been approved by Hamas.”

The Israeli media assures that the Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Paulin and the two Israeli women Carmel Gat and Eden Jerusalem were included in the list of hostages to be released during the first phase of the cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip, after months of negotiations.

The Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assured that “several” of the hostages “were alive and were killed by Israeli occupation forces shooting and shelling.”

The Israeli Defense Minister Joab Gallantfor his part, confirmed that the hostages were “killed in cold blood by Hamas just before we got to them” in a tunnel in the south of the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said this morning that he knows “they were killed by Hamas terrorists.”

“We know, I can tell you, there were no instructions to shoot in real time inside the tunnel,” he said, confirming that Hamas’s claims that the hostages were killed by Israeli forces amounted to “psychological warfare.”

For months, Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to secure an agreement in Gaza, based on a plan proposed in late May by US President Joe Biden.

Israel and Hamas say they accept it but do not agree on certain conditions for its implementation, mainly regarding the maintenance of Israeli troops on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

The ongoing war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, which left 1,205 people dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

On that day, 251 people were kidnapped in Israel and taken to Gaza.

Israeli retaliation has left at least 40,691 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas health ministry. According to the UN, the majority of the deaths are women and minors.