Israeli army announces death of Israeli-American hostage kidnapped by Hamas

Private Omer Neutra, from New York State, was considered a living hostage of Hamas. Israel said he died in the October 2023 terrorist attacks.

The Israeli army announced Monday, December 2, the death of one of its soldiers, killed on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas attack on Israel and whose body was taken to Gaza, where it is still located. The army authorized the publication of the name of “Captain Omer Maxime Neutra, aged 21 at his death (…) soldier fallen in combat [dont le corps est] detained by a terrorist organization”reports a military press release.

The Families Forum, the main Israeli association of relatives of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, praised the memory of the young man in a press release, recalling that Omer Neutra had grown up in New York State, in the United States. , before emigrating alone to Israel and joining the army. “His family was informed this morning that he had been killed on October 7”adds the text, while he was until now considered a living hostage of Hamas. On Saturday, Hamas' military wing released a photo of another Israeli-American soldier being held in Gaza.

The terrorist attack launched on October 7, 2023 by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israel from the Gaza Strip resulted in the death, on the Israeli side, of 1,208 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count from of official data, including Omer Neutra and hostages killed or died in captivity. That day, 251 people were kidnapped on Israeli soil.

A total of 97 hostages remain in Gaza, 35 of whom were declared dead by the army. The Israeli military campaign launched in retaliation has left at least 44,429 dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.