Israel confirmed it had received the remains of another Gaza hostage handed over as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal.
“Israel has received, through the Red Cross, the coffin of a missing hostage who was handed over to the IDF (military) and Shin Bet forces inside the Gaza Strip,” a statement from the prime minister’s office said on Tuesday.
The military and Shin Bet later confirmed the remains were back in Israel, and were being sent to “the National Institute for Forensic Medicine, where identification procedures will be carried out”.
A senior Hamas official told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the group’s armed wing had handed over the captive’s remains to the Red Cross after receiving them from the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.
A statement from the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades said: “In fulfilment of our national responsibility, we… announce that we are handing over the body of one of the Zionist soldiers in implementation of the terms of the agreement.”
Prior to this handover, Hamas had returned 12 bodies of hostages to Israel, out of the 28 it had pledged to return as part of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
