'We need to start bringing people home alive not dead'

Plea for truce as body of UK hostage one of six found in Gaza

- BEL TREW

Israel must agree a ceasefire deal now and bring the remaining hostages home “before they all die”, families and friends said yesterday, as the bodies of six more captives – including a British-Israeli citizen – were retrieved from Gaza.

Nadav Popplewell, 51, who was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was retrieved by Israeli forces in an overnight operation along with Yagev Buchshtab, 35; Alexander Dancyg, 76; Avraham Munder, 79; Yoram Metzger, 80; and Chaim Perry, 80.

“We need to start bringing people home alive and not dead – and that needs to happen soon,” said Adele Raemer, a BritishIsraeli teacher who lived three doors down from Mr Popplewell’s family in Kibbutz Nirim and was a family friend. “The Israeli military has already done a lot of damage in Gaza, and I expect progress. [The hostages] have been there long enough,” she said.

The plea for a truce came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken was in Egypt seeking to keep truce talks on track, while inside Gaza at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school that was housing displaced people in northern Gaza City. Israel said it had targeted a Hamas command centre at the site.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called out prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not acting quicker in talks, saying the recovery of the bodies shows that a deal is needed now. “Enough with the briefings, enough with the tweets, enough with the rhymes in front of cameras,” he said. “All of Netanyahu’s attempts to sabotage the negotiations should stop. A deal now, before they all die.”