Dead Gaza hostage ‘tortured’

JERUSALEM (AFP) — An Israeli community announced on Tuesday the death of a male hostage in the Gaza Strip, saying he was “physically and mentally tortured” in captivity.

“Kibbutz Nir Oz announces with great sadness the murder of the late Avraham Munder, 79, in captivity in Gaza after suffering physical and mental torture for months,” the community said in a statement.

Palestinian militants had abducted Munder, his wife, daughter and grandson during the 7 October attack by Hamas on southern Israel.

The other family members were released during the single, week-long truce of the war last November, while his son was killed on the day of the attack.

The attack led by Hamas militants resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 40 the military and Israeli officials say are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.

Tel Aviv suicide bombing

Meanwhile, Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Monday claimed responsibility for a bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday, calling it a “suicide operation” and threatening more attacks in Israel as the Gaza war drags on.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are both fighting against Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli police earlier said the late Sunday blast in Israel’s commercial hub was a “terror attack” that prompted heightened alert.

The force had reported that one person — who Israeli media said was the suspected assailant — was killed, and another wounded.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said a more serious attack was averted.

“The Palestinian with a backpack loaded with explosives exploded his charge that he was carrying before he managed... to reach a more heavily populated area,” Mencer said in an online press briefing.

“As a result of the explosion, a passerby was moderately injured,” the police said, adding that authorities had ordered “an increase in alert levels and extensive searches throughout the greater Tel Aviv area.”

The blast occurred shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to push for a ceasefire in Gaza after more than 10 months of war triggered by Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.

Rocket barrages

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched several rocket salvos at Israeli army positions in the annexed Golan Heights on Tuesday “in response” to Israeli strikes on east Lebanon the previous day.

Hezbollah fighters launched “intense rocket barrages” at two Israeli army positions in the occupied Golan Heights “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attack on the Bekaa” Valley — which a source close to Hezbollah said targeted weapons depots in the eastern region.