New and disturbing details have emerged about the final days and execution of hostage Chanan Yablonka, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists, according to an account given by his sister, Avivit Yablonka Abadi, to the Daily Mail and also cited by i24NEWS.
According to the new account, Chanan, 42, arrived at the Nova music festival in Re'im after a spontaneous decision he made just hours before the terror attack began, without having told his family he was going. As the massacre unfolded on the morning of Simchat Torah, Chanan was shot in the chest by terrorists. While severely wounded, he was dragged and loaded onto a Hamas truck and taken into the Gaza Strip.
The account states that the terrorists brought the wounded Chanan to a hospital inside Gaza. Rather than receiving medical treatment, the opposite occurred, according to the sister's telling: when local doctors determined he was critically wounded and dying, a decision was made to execute him. Terrorists reportedly shot him three times in the head as he lay helpless in the hospital bed.
Following the killing, the terrorists placed his body in a sack and moved it to northern Gaza, where it was hidden and sealed inside the walls of a Hamas tunnel in the Jabaliya area, alongside the bodies of several other murdered hostages. The bodies remained there until an IDF and Shin Bet operation located and recovered them for burial in Israel. The account was shared as part of a delegation of survivors, freed hostages and hostage family members that traveled to London this month.
This account differs substantially from what was previously reported by the IDF and widely covered in 2024, when Chanan's body was recovered during a military operation in Jabaliya. At that time, the IDF stated, based on intelligence gathered during the war, that Chanan had been killed on October 7, 2023, near the Mefalsim Junction, not far from the festival grounds, along with several friends who had fled with him, and there was no established account of him having been taken alive into Gaza or held in a hospital.
The new revelations add to a long list of testimonies describing the cruelty Hamas terrorists showed toward hostages. The IDF continues its operations to eliminate Hamas operatives involved in the October 7 massacre and in holding hostages, including the recent elimination of a Hamas commander who had been responsible for holding hostages and who played a central role in documenting their captivity.
JFeed has not been able to independently confirm the hospital execution account beyond the sister's statements as reported by the Daily Mail and i24NEWS, and it is not yet clear whether this represents new intelligence that updates the previously reported version of events or a different characterization of what happened to Chanan.
