Report: Hostage rescued near site where 6 captives were murdered warned IDF, Shin Bet he heard woman speaking Hebrew but was ignored
The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet failed to investigate a testimony from a rescued hostage who said he had reason to believe a female hostage was being held nearby, just days before the murder of six hostages in a tunnel under Rafah back in August, Channel 12 reports.
The report comes days after the IDF presented the findings of its investigation into the murder of the hostages, where it said that it did not have any concrete or real-time intelligence on the hostages being held there in the weeks before they were killed, but had general indications that Israeli abductees could be in the area.
According to Channel 12, Farhan al-Qadi, who was rescued from Gaza on August 27, told both the IDF and the Shin Bet that he had heard a woman speaking Hebrew in the vicinity of the site where he was rescued several weeks before he was found.
However, despite delivering the warning twice, the defense establishment did not deem it credible, Channel 12 reports, and no steps were taken to investigate it further.
Two days later, on August 29, hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi were killed by their captors in a tunnel nearby. Their bodies were discovered by troops on August 31.
In its probe into the murder of the hostages and the events surrounding it, the IDF said it found that al-Qadi did not have any information on other hostages in the area.
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