Itay Svirsky, 40, was a therapist who loved philosophy. Eden Yerushalmi, 24, was training to become a Pilates instructor. Alex Lobanov, 32, a father of three, never met his youngest child.
They are among the 41 hostages killed since being taken captive by Hamas and its allies during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to an analysis by The New York Times of forensic reports and military investigations into their deaths, as well as interviews with more than a dozen Israeli soldiers and officials, a senior regional official and seven relatives of hostages.
Some were killed by Hamas, some by Israeli fire, some their cause of death unknown. The losses — and most acutely, the scale of them — are now at the heart of an anguished debate within Israeli society about whether more people could have been brought back alive if a truce had been reached sooner.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has long contended that only military force could compel Hamas to free the hostages. Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents argued that the longer the war, the likelier that the hostages would be executed by Hamas or killed in Israeli strikes.
The debate has gained more resonance in recent days as the country faces the prospect of returning to war since the lapse of the recent truce. The Israeli government recently upended the process by proposing a new framework, immediately rejected by Hamas, that called for a seven-week extension during which the group would release half the living hostages and return the remains of half the deceased ones.
Of the 59 hostages still believed held in Gaza, the Israel government has said that only 24 are alive. The fear and uncertainty over their fates has been seared on the national psyche.
In late February, thousands of Israelis lined the streets along the funeral route of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on Israel and killed in Gaza. Many held signs that read “sorry,” an apology for not doing enough to save them.
Of the 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led raid that ignited the war in October 2023, more than 130 have been exchanged alive for Palestinian detainees. The Israeli military has retrieved the corpses of more than 40 others, many of whom were taken dead into Gaza during the attack. Hamas has handed over eight bodies as part of the latest cease-fire agreement.
A few hostages were almost certainly killed in the first days of the war, before it was possible to seal a truce, according to two Israeli officials. But many others have died since the brief first cease-fire collapsed in November 2023 and the fighting continued in a war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The soldiers and officials all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive findings.
Although Israel and Hamas neared another cease-fire deal in July, the talks collapsed, and it took another five months to strike an agreement, one largely similar to the one discussed in the summer. Mr. Netanyahu’s political rivals and some of the hostages’ relatives have said that the months of extra fighting, while degrading Hamas and its allies in Lebanon and Iran, led to the deaths of more hostages and ultimately failed to defeat Hamas.
“We could have brought home more hostages — earlier and for a smaller price,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister until November, said in a televised interview last month.
While Mr. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment, he has long blamed Hamas for the failure to reach a truce. “Only continued military pressure, until total victory, will bring about the release of all of our hostages,” the prime minister said last year.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the specific circumstances in which the hostages were killed but said in a statement that it has carried out operations with numerous precautions taken to protect the captives.
The statement added that it “expresses deep sorrow for every incident in which hostages were killed during their captivity and is doing everything in its power to prevent such occurrences.” The military also said that it regularly updates the families of hostages on the status of their loved ones.
Seven hostages were executed by their captors as Israeli soldiers drew near, and four others died in Israeli airstrikes, according to Israeli officials and the public findings of military investigations.
Three hostages were killed by Israeli soldiers who mistook them for Palestinian militants, the Israeli military said publicly; one was shot dead in crossfire. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of 26 others remain inconclusive.
In some cases, there are conflicting claims, such as in the case of the Bibas family. Hamas said that the three were killed in an Israeli strike, but the Israeli military said they were murdered.
Neither side has offered evidence for their conclusions. After examining the bodies, Dr. Chen Kugel, the director of Israel’s national forensic institute, said in a statement that there is no evidence they were killed in a bombing.
Some relatives of the hostages blame Hamas alone for these deaths. Nira Sharabi’s abducted husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to a military inquiry. She said in an interview that Hamas was ultimately responsible “because they took him and put him there.”
Others believe that the government cared more about fighting Hamas than saving their loved ones.
“The government deceived the public by downplaying the risks the war posed to hostages,” said Merav Svirsky.
Her brother survived an Israeli airstrike only to be executed by his Hamas captor days later, according to three Israeli officials and Ms. Svirsky, who was briefed by military.
“The captor murdered my brother. But the reason he shot him was the military’s campaign,” Ms. Svirsky added.
Killed in Airstrikes
When Israel hit a subterranean Hamas command center in November 2023, the strike killed two Hamas commanders, including Ahmed al-Ghandour, a Hamas general who Israel said helped organize the October attack.
A month later, Israeli infantry scouring the site of the strike discovered the bodies of three unintended victims: an Israeli kidnapped from a music festival on Oct. 7 and two soldiers captured at a nearby military base.
The military has tried to prevent harm to hostages. Throughout the war, intelligence officers gathered information about each captive and maintained records of their last known location, according to more than 12 officials.
But the military couldn’t pinpoint the whereabouts of many hostages, especially in the first weeks of the war when information was scarce and aerial bombardments were at their most intense, according to three military officials. If there was no clear indication of a hostage’s location, the air force was able to strike, as in the attack on al-Ghandour.
After eventually concluding in March 2023 that the airstrike had killed hostages, the military didn’t inform their relatives for months, according to two defense officials. The military declined to comment on the incident.
In January 2024, the military allowed relatives to see a forensic report, later reviewed by the Times, that suggested the men may have been suffocated by noxious gases.
Maayan Sherman, the mother of one of the victims, soon began a public campaign to press the military to admit that the gases were emitted during an explosion caused by an Israeli missile.
It was not until September that the military acknowledged the men were killed in one of its own airstrikes. It has not disclosed the exact cause of death.
Executed by Hamas
In late August, Israeli commandos advanced through a town in southern Gaza, hoping to find Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, according to five Israeli defense officials.
As they were hunting for Mr. Sinwar, the Israeli military assessed there were people potentially being held in tunnels in the same neighborhood. The commandos confirmed the presence of at least one hostage on Aug. 27, when they discovered a living captive, Farhan al-Qadi, an Arab Israeli, in a tunnel.
Fearing their presence might endanger other hostages, the forces initially suspended their mission, according to a military investigation.
The area was already previously marked as restricted for operations on military maps, which were reviewed by the Times. Three officials said that by operating in the area, the military risked their lives, since militants had been ordered to kill captives if cornered.
Ultimately the need to hunt Mr. Sinwar took higher priority, according to four defense officials.
After a daylong pause, the commandos pressed ahead on Aug. 28 with their search.
On Aug. 31, instead of Mr. Sinwar, the commandos discovered the bodies of six hostages who had been shot, killed and abandoned in a narrow tunnel.
Hamas issued conflicting messages shortly after the incident — one official blamed Israel for killing them, while another strongly suggested they were killed by Hamas fighters.
The military inquiry later concluded that they had been killed by their guards as the Israeli forces approached.
Mr. Sinwar was ultimately killed in another operation on Oct. 16.
Killed During Rescue Attempts
One night in December 2023, a squad of Israeli commandos thought they were on the cusp of rescuing a female hostage. The squad stormed a Hamas hide-out in Gaza, expecting to find an Israeli woman in a separate room from her captors, according to three Israeli officials.
Instead, they found themselves in a gun battle with Hamas militants. The woman was nowhere in sight. Without Israeli intelligence officers realizing, Hamas appeared to have swapped her for a male hostage, Sahar Baruch, according to the officials.
Soon, Mr. Baruch was dead — killed in crossfire that also injured Israeli soldiers, the officials said. It is unclear whether Mr. Baruch was killed by friendly fire or his captors; Hamas later released a video of his body.
Mr. Baruch’s remains are still in Gaza.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting