Good morning. There were 115 Israeli hostages, dead and alive, left in Gaza; now there are 109. Yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces said that taken by Hamas on 7 October last year – Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Chaim Peri – from tunnels under the city of Khan Younis.
While the families of all six had already announced that their loved ones were believed dead, that physical confirmation was devastating all the same. Meanwhile, at least 12 Palestinians , Gaza’s civil defence agency said, adding that the building was being used to house displaced people. Israel claimed that it was a command and control centre for Hamas.
The count maintained by Gaza’s health authorities of dead Palestinians stands at more than 40,000. Before he held ceasefire negotiations in Egypt and Qatar yesterday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned that the talks were “maybe the last opportunity” to broker a hostage and prisoner swap. In Israel, the sense that time is running out remains a central source of pressure for the deal that the hostages and Palestinian civilians so desperately need.
Today’s newsletter, with Tel Aviv-based political analyst and public opinion expert Dahlia Scheindlin, is about the weight of the hostages in Israeli discourse, and what it would take to bring them home. Here are the headlines. | , cut spending and get tough on benefits in October’s budget, amid Treasury alarm over the state of the .