Israel fears only 40 hostages remain alive out of the 133 still held by Hamas after the October 7 attack

Fears were growing last night that only 40 of the 133 hostages held by Hamas are still alive.

The figure is based on intelligence gathered by Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, which followed the October 7 massacre when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages from southern Israel to Gaza.

A source said: '[Intelligence] is much easier to access than before October 7 when we had limited access to Gaza and we didn't have a lot of possibilities of sources. 

'The situation is completely different because we are there.'

Israel's retaliation to the attack has left 33,000 Palestinians dead, the terror group claims.

Among the hostages remaining in Hamas captivity is British citizen Nadav Popplewell, 51

Israel says 14,000 of them were Hamas operatives.

Two of the hostages are British citizens, Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Emily Damari, 27. 

So far 112 ­hostages have been returned alive to Israel.

Of those, 105 were released as part of an exchange last year. Before that, Hamas released four prisoners, while three more were rescued by the Israel Defense Forces.

The source added: 'Hamas is trying to keep everything very secret . . . they will never release all the ­hostages and corpses.'

Another security source said: 'Negotiating is a lost cause. We cannot possibly negotiate dead bodies for the release of hundreds or thousands more terrorists.'

Yehonatan Sabban, of the ­Hostages and Missing Families Forum, said: 'The hostages in Gaza are running out of time.'

Some of the hostages still missing (all from left). First row: Avinatan Or, 30; Kfir Bibas, 1; Carmel Gat, 39; Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23; Doron Steinbrecher, 31. Second row: Dror Or, 49; Zahar Baruch, 24; Agam Berger, 19; Noa Argamani, 26; Gali Berman, 26. Third row: Liri Albag, 19; Yosef Ohana, 24; Hamza Alzayadni, 22; Eitan Horn, 37; Daniela Gilboa, 19. Fourth row: Ariel Bibas, 4; Omer Wenkert, 22; Karina Ariev, 19; Yair Horn, 45; Edan Alexander, 20. Fifth row: Romi Gonen, 23; Yosef Alzayadni, 53; Guy Illouz, 26; Naama Levy, 19; Eden Yerushalmi, 24. Sixth row: Ziv Berman, 26; Amit Esther Buskila, 28; Tamir Adar, 38; Gad Haggai, 73; Alon Ohel, 23