Middle East crisis live: Israeli military says bodies of six hostages recovered in Gaza

The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin issued a statement on his death after his body was discovered by Israeli military in Gaza along with the bodies of five other hostages.

“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”

US president Joe Biden, who had met with Goldberg-Polin’s parents, said they “have been courageous, wise and steadfast, even as they have endured the unimaginable”.

“They have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express,” Biden said.

Goldberg-Polin was one of the best-known hostages as his parents had met with world leaders and pressed relentlessly for their help. Last month, they addressed the Democratic national convention, where the crowd chanted “bring them home”.

The Israeli military has confirmed the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October have been recovered from a tunnel in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were brought to Israel, the IDF said in a statement.

“According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing.

Hamas and its armed wing did not immediately comment on the accusations.

US president Joe Biden issued a statement confirming the news.

“Earlier today, in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, Israeli forces recovered six bodies of hostages held by Hamas,” Biden said. “I am devastated and outraged.”

The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin also issued a statement early on Sunday saying he had been killed in the Gaza Strip.

“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”

Read our full report here:

Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider crisis in the Middle East.

Israeli military says the bodies of six hostages abducted by Hamas during the 7 October attack have been recovered in a tunnel in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were brought to Israel, it said in a statement.

The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin confirmed early Sunday that he had been killed in the Gaza Strip.

More details on those stories shortly, in other key developments:

• Gaza’s heath ministry has begun a multi-day campaign to vaccinate children against polio and prevent the spread of the virus. Inoculations started a day before the large-scale rollout on Sunday and coincides with a humanitarian pause agreed by Israel and Hamas.

• Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least 48 people in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian health authorities said, as clashes took place in central and southern areas of the territory. On Saturday, as more than 2,000 medical and community workers prepared for the start of the vaccination campaign, medics in Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, said separate Israeli strikes killed at least 19 people, including nine members of the same family. More than 30 other people were killed in a series of strikes in other areas of Gaza, medics said.

• Israel’s military said its forces killed two people in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, after one infiltrated an Israeli settlement and another shot at soldiers after his car exploded, Reuters reports.

• At least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 wounded in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a regular update on Saturday.

• The World Health Organization has said it has already delivered 1.2m doses of polio vaccine to Gaza, with 400,000 more to follow, as part of an emergency campaign after the first case of the childhood disease in the war-hit coastal strip in quarter of a century. The WHO said that Israel’s military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccinations of 640,000 children against polio.

• The director-general of the WHO has called for a ceasefire ahead of plans to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza against polio. “Humanitarian pauses are welcome, but ultimately, the only solution to safeguard the health of the children of Gaza is a ceasefire,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

• The UK is “deeply concerned” by Israel’s military operation in West Bank and “deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed”, a statement from the Foreign Office said.

• Israeli border police killed a senior Hamas commander in the West Bank and two Hamas gunmen on Friday, the Israeli military said. The Israeli military said its troops identified and killed Hamas leader, Wassem Hazem, while he was driving. When two others in the car – whom the military also identified as militants – attempted to flee, troops killed both in an airstrike.

• The Israeli military said on Friday it had wrapped up a month-long operation in southern and central Gaza that it said killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters. “The troops of the 98th Division have completed their divisional operation in the Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah area, after about a month of simultaneous above and underground operational activity,” a military statement said.

• A broader regional war in the Middle East where conflict already rages between Hamas and Israel remains a “significant risk”, the head of the UN peacekeeping force warned on Friday. United Nations undersecretary-general for peace operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said: “There is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level. We are still very much in a very, very dangerous type of situation.”

• The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has launched a process that could lead to sanctions on Israeli ministers he said were responsible for “unacceptable hate messages” against Palestinians. Borrell said he had begun consultations with the EU’s 27 member states on whether they consider it “appropriate including in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers [who] have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians” and made proposals that “go clearly against international law” and incite war crimes.