Sharon Sharabi, brother of Eli Sharabi who is being held captive by Hamas, said on Sunday that despite the assessment that another brother of his, Yossi, was killed following an Israel Air Force strike on a building near where he was being held by Hamas in Gaza, he is not angry at the IDF.
"I thank the IDF for the transparency. The Sharabi family has no allegations against the IDF. They do their job faithfully. It is possible that Yossi's death saved soldiers' lives, I think his death was not in vain. The very fact that Yossi was dragged into a combat zone by Hamas means that he was murdered by the terrorists," Sharon told Kan 11 News.
He stressed that "as the fighting goes on and deepens in this complicated area, the fate of the hostages becomes more difficult and complicated."
"That's why we hope that the Israeli government will create a diplomatic maneuver that will bring the hostages home. The highest price is the lives of the hostages. We had very high hopes for Yossi as well and we thought it was a matter of time. And we still need to bring him back for burial in Israel. Eli is the last members of our family who is living in captivity. We lost four family members. He should be returned," Sharabi concluded.
On Friday, the family of Yossi Sharabi, who was taken hostage by Hamas from Kibbutz Be’eri and died while in captivity, was informed of the details of investigation conducted by the IDF regarding the circumstances of his death.
The body of Sharabi, 53, is still being held by Hamas, but already in mid-January the IDF had collected enough intelligence to confirm that he was not alive.
The IDF estimates that Sharabi could have been killed as a result of an Israel Air Force attack on a building near where he was held, likely alongside Itay Svirsky of Be’eri, who was murdered by Hamas a few days later.
According to the investigation, the army identified a terrorist cell which was hiding in a building that was attacked in the town of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
The squad in question was organized with many weapons and preparing to attack IDF troops. Heavy weaponry was fired at the building and destroyed it. The building collapsed, probably on the squad that was inside, but it also caused damage to a nearby building where Sharabi was being held and it is believed that this is how he was killed.