Cairo, Mar 24: The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian movement Hamas, said that a 34-year-old Israeli hostage died from a lack of medicine and food.

“We inform about the death of a 34-year-old Zionist [Israeli] hostage … as a result of a lack of medicine and food,” the military said in a statement.

Last October, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing 1,200 people and abducting around 240 others. Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and started a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. Over 31,900 people have been killed so far in the Gaza Strip, local authorities said.

UNI