About 50 of the 97 hostages still being held by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza Strip as of October 7, 2023 they are still alive, the Israeli prime minister reportedly said Benjamin Netanyahuaccording to press reports Israel.

Netanyahu reportedly made this assessment during a meeting with the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, according to media reports. There has been no official confirmation of this information; the meeting took place behind closed doors.

Of the 251 people kidnapped during the unprecedented raid by the military arm of Hamas and other Palestinian movements in southern Israel, 97 remain in the hands of Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, but 33 have been declared dead by the Israeli military. .

During a week-long ceasefire agreed and implemented in late November, Palestinian armed movements released 105 hostages in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli detention centers. Since then, indirect negotiations for a new ceasefire and the release of hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners have proved fruitless.

Fewer than ten hostages have been freed in Israeli military operations, several others have been recovered dead.

During the October offensive, 1,205 people, most of them civilians, were killed on the Israeli side, according to a count based on official Israeli data, which includes hostages killed while being held.

Wide-ranging Israeli military retaliatory operations have since killed at least 41,431 Palestinians in the small besieged coastal enclave, according to Hamas’ health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.