Biden-Harris admin faces pressure for Gaza truce after captive deaths

Several US Democratic lawmakers renewed calls for an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire on Sunday in reaction to the killing of six captives in a tunnel under Gaza.

Israel recovered the bodies of six captives in Gaza where they died in a tunnel, triggering Israeli protests on Sunday and planned strikes over the failure to save them.

The Israeli military said the bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who is an Israeli-American citizen, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel.

Democratic US Senator Dick Durbin said in a post on X that he was "heartbroken and devastated" by the news of Goldberg-Polin's death.

"A ceasefire must be reached immediately that allows all remaining captives to be released, humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza, and an elusive and neglected long-term vision for peace and stability to become a reality," said Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is another captive with American citizenship, said the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to engage in negotiations with Hamas to bring captives home and time was running out.

He said the "entire senior military establishment and intelligence community has been saying publicly and openly for weeks and months that the time has come to end the fighting in Gaza, get our hostages home, as many alive as possible," Dekel-Chen told the CBS "Face the Nation" program."

US President Joe Biden spoke with Goldberg-Polin's parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, who appeared at the Democratic National Convention last month, to offer condolences, a White House official said.