Israeli army spokesperson Brigadier General Daniel Hagari on Wednesday evening provided details of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of six hostages in captivity in Gaza: Alex Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, Haim Peri, Yagev Buchshtab, Nadav Popplewell and Avraham Munder.
“They had been detained for months in a tunnel in Khan Younes,” Hagari said during a press briefing. He specified that it was a “passage tunnel 100 meters long, not designed for prolonged stay, and so low that a person could hardly stand in it.” The spokesperson stressed that at the time of the strike, the army was unaware of the presence of hostages in this sector, adding that “we learned afterwards that the distance between the point of impact and their place of detention was approximately 120 to 200 meters.”
In another part of his speech, Hagari spoke about the Feldstein law recently passed by the Knesset, calling it “dangerous for the IDF and national security.” This law, he said, could create a situation where “any soldier could steal documents.”
“The IDF does not hide information from political levels, it operates under their authority for the security of Israel,” he insisted. He notably referred to a document which “was accessible to authorized persons in the Prime Minister’s office, but was stolen and transmitted to a German newspaper by circumventing censorship”. According to Hagari, this leak “was exposed to the enemy and harmed national security.” The general concluded by emphasizing that this law is “very dangerous because it could allow any junior member of the IDF to steal intelligence on their own.”
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