Israel received, through the Red Cross, a coffin that, according to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), contains the body of one of the last three deceased hostages still in Gaza, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Israeli forces will now transfer the bodies to Israel’s National Forensic Medicine Center in Tel Aviv for identification.
Earlier, PIJ and Hamas announced that the body of an Israeli hostage had been found in central Gaza on Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warned that it viewed “severely the delay in the immediate transfer” of the body, saying it constituted a “new violation” of the six-week ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Following the handover in central Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, the office announced that the families of the three dead hostages had been informed accordingly.
“Our hearts go out to them at this difficult time,” he added. “The effort to return our hostages continues and will not cease until the last hostage is returned.”
Under the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, which came into force on October 10, Hamas agreed to return the 20 live Israeli hostages and the bodies of the 28 dead Israeli and foreign hostages still in Gaza within 72 hours.
All living hostages were released on October 13 in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 Gaza detainees.
So far, the remains of 22 dead Israeli hostages have been handed over, along with those of three foreign hostages, one of them Thai, a Nepalese and a Tanzanian.
In exchange, Israel has handed over the bodies of 330 Palestinians killed during the war.
Two of the three remaining dead hostages are Israelis – Ran Gvili, 24, and Dror Or, 48 – and one is Thai – Suthisak Rintalak, 43.
Israel has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the bodies, while Hamas has insisted it is struggling to find them under the rubble.
Slow progress has meant there has been no progress in the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. This includes plans for the governance of Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction.
The dead hostages still in Gaza were among 251 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which some 1,200 more people were killed.
Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 69,770 people were killed, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry.
