JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Thursday that bullets had been found in the bodies of six hostages retrieved from a Gaza tunnel earlier this week, indicating that they had been shot.

The bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, Chaim Perry and Avraham Munder were found on Monday night in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said the following day, though it was not clear what had caused their deaths in captivity.

A military spokesman told AFP on Thursday that examinations were carried out and “bullets were found in the bodies of the six hostages” seized from the site raided by Israeli forces in the Khan Yunis area.

“The investigation into the circumstances of their deaths continues,” the spokesman added.

Israel says bodies of six hostages retrieved from Gaza tunnel

The six dead hostages were among 251 people seized by Palestinian during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.

Of those, 105 remain in the Palestinian territory, including 34 the military says are dead.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that the six “were killed while our forces were operating in Khan Yunis”.

Relatives of numerous hostages who died in captivity have said the military had informed them that their loves ones may have been killed by Israeli operations and bombardment in Gaza.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,265 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian deaths.

The UN rights office says most dead are women and children.