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At least 35 of the hostages are children.
The Israeli army has confirmed discovery of the bodies of two people taken hostage by the Palestinian Hamas group when it attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The army said it had recovered the remains of Noa Marciano, a 19-year-old woman soldier whose death was announced a few days ago by both Israel and Hamas.
Soldiers also found the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman abducted from the Beeri kibbutz community.
Based on interviews with relatives and Israeli media reports, AFP has confirmed the identities of 206 other hostages believed to still be held by Hamas or other Palestinian groups.
At least nine are soldiers.
Five other hostages from the initial group of around 240 people, snatched from kibbutz communities and a desert music festival, have been released.
Four were freed by Hamas and one by the Israeli army during its Gaza ground offensive. All five are women.
The fate of the other hostages is highly uncertain, with only a handful appearing in proof-of-life videos.
Here is what we know about them:
Dozens of children
At least 35 of the hostages are children, including — according to the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a baby born during the mother’s captivity.
Eighteen are aged 10 or under.
One of the youngest is Kfir Bibas, a baby boy who was just nine months old when gunmen snatched him in Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, along with his four-year-old brother Ariel, father Yarden, 34, and mother Shiri, 32.
Shiri and the children appear in a video from the day of the attack seen by the family, showing them surrounded by gunmen and looking panic-stricken.
At least 107 of the hostages are adult men and 62 are adult women.
– Eight octagenarians –
The hostages include at least eight people aged over 80.
Yaffa Adar, who was 85 at the time of the attack on Nir Oz, is one of the oldest hostages.
She was filmed being whisked away on what appeared to be a golf cart loaded with operatives.
Entire families
Two families had seven members abducted.
Tal Shoham, 38, was taken from Beeri, the kibbutz community that saw some of the worst atrocities in the Hamas attacks, together with six relatives.
His wife Adi, 38, eight-year-old son Nave and three-year-old daughter Yahel, are also believed to be held in Gaza, as are Adi’s mother Shoshan Haran, 67, her aunt, Sharon Avigdori, 52, and Sharon’s daughter Noam, aged 12.
Other members of their extended family were killed in the attacks, according to media reports.
Seven people were also taken from a family in Nir Oz kibbutz, which had at least 73 of its around 400 residents abducted — the highest number for a single community.
Sharon Aloni Cunio, 34, husband David, 33, and their twin three-year-old daughters Emma and Yuly, were all seized on October 7. So were David’s brother Ariel and Sharon’s sister Danielle and Danielle’s five-year-old daughter Amelia.
Danielle, 44, appeared in a video released by Hamas on October 30 along with two other women named in a statement by Netanyahu as Yelena Trupanov and Rimon Kirsht.
In the video, Aloni urged Netanyahu to agree a prisoner exchange with the Palestinians.
Dozens more hostages were snatched from the Supernova desert rave where Hamas operatives gunned down scores of revellers and took at least 39 hostages.
Many nationalities
Apart from Israel, 27 countries have citizens among the hostages, according to figures from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Many are dual nationals.
Twenty-five Thai nationals were abducted along with 21 Argentines, 18 Germans, 10 US citizens, seven French and seven Russians, according to figures provided by their respective governments.
Proof of life
Hamas has released two proof-of-life videos, one of Aloni and two other women, and an earlier clip showing French-Israeli woman Mia Shem, 21, pleading for help.
Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group in Gaza, on November 9 released a video it said showed two other hostages — Hannah Katzir, a woman in her 70s, and Yagil Yaakov, 13.
Between 15 and 30 other people, mostly foreigners, are still considered missing, according to Israeli media.
They are believed to have either been taken captive or to have been killed on October 7 but not yet been identified.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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