HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Yosef was late to his weekly shiur on Motzei Shabbos in Jerusalem, an extremely rare occurrence, Kikar H’Shabbat reported.

At the end of the shiur, HaRav Yosef revealed the reason – he was writing a p’sak halacha on declaring a captive deceased.

“I was late today because there was an incident with a captive who was murdered and they had to declare him dead. Hamas is holding the body. We have a special Beis Din for these issues.”

“We sit for several days and see all the videos – horrible things – we carried out identification processes from all types of videos.”

“We confirmed that he was dead, I instructed the family to sit shiva, to tear kriyah. It’s a din of ‘התייאשו לקוברו’ [they gave up hope of burying him].”

Last week, HaRav Yosef paskened that several hostages in Gaza can be declared dead.

Hashem Yimam Damo.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)