Mediators in hostage talks and a US official familiar with the latest U.S. intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that the number of hostages still alive could be as low as 50.

The assessment, which is partially based on Israeli intelligence, would mean that 66 hostages have been murdered or died in captivity, 25 more than Israel has publicly confirmed.

Yitzhar Lifshitz’s 84-year-old father, Oded Lifshitz, is a hostage in Gaza. Hostages who were released in November said they saw him wounded but alive early in the war, but Yitzhar hasn’t heard anything new from the military since then.

“We hang on to the hope that he might be alive,” Yitzhar told the Journal. “But in our stomach we know that older people, wounded people, people taken more than eight months ago, people like that even in Israel would need to change their medication several times, a doctor’s treatment. And they are not getting that there.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)