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Israel has recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip, where they were apparently killed shortly before Israeli troops approached them, the army said on Sunday.

The Israeli army announced the discovery of bodies in an underground tunnel in the southern city of Rafah, as a polio vaccination campaign began in the war-torn territory and violence intensified in the occupied West Bank.

Bodies Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Daninor were returned to Israel, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters at a press conference.

“Our initial assessment is that they were brutally killed by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure after nearly 11 months of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to reach an agreement that includes ceasefire and release of the remaining hostages, He said Israel would not rest until those responsible were caught.

“Whoever kills hostages does not want an agreement,” he said.

Senior Hamas officials said Israel was to blame for the deaths because it refused to sign a ceasefire.

‘Netanyahu is responsible for the murder of Israeli prisoners’“The Israelis will have to choose between Netanyahu and the deal,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

The bodies found were those of about 250 hostages taken during a shock Hamas raid into southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war on October 7 last year.

His death leaves 101 Israeli and foreign prisoners in Gaza, but it is known that about a third of them died, and the fate of the rest is unknown.

According to Israel’s estimates, the Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people. Since then, At least 40,738 Palestinians were killed and 94,154 wounded. in the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

The hostage families’ forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what is holding up the agreement.

“They were all killed in the last few days. “after nearly 11 months of abuse, torture and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the agreement led to their deaths and the deaths of many other hostages,” he said.

Municipal services in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel planned a half-day strike on Monday in solidarity with the hostages and their families.

Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid called on Israel’s main labor union to also go on strike and for Israelis to join a major protest in Tel Aviv later in the day.

Netanyahu’s office said he had spoken to the family of Alexander Lobanov, whose body was among those found, apologizing and expressing his “deep regret.”

US President Joe Biden, who has been closely monitoring the fate of the hostages, said that among the six was Israeli-American Goldberg-Polin and that he was “devastated and outraged.”

“The leaders of Hamas will pay for these crimes. And we will continue to work tirelessly to reach an agreement that guarantees the release of the remaining hostages,” he said in a statement.

Goldberg-Pauline, 23, was snatched at a music festival near the Gaza border and appeared in video released by Hamas in late April.

Months of on-again, off-again talks brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt have yet to produce an agreement, despite growing American pressure and repeated trips by senior officials to the region.

Both sides agreed to cease fighting in areas of Gaza for at least eight hours a day from Sunday to Tuesday to allow the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and Palestinian doctors to begin a comprehensive operation to vaccinate 640,000 children.

The campaign comes after WHO confirmed last month that a child had been partially paralysed by the polio virus type 2, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.