Jerusalem: Israeli authorities have identified the remains of three bodies handed over by Hamas on Friday night as not belonging to any Israeli hostages, according to local media reports Saturday.
“We ruled out that the remains returned Friday evening are related to Israeli hostages,” Israeli news website Ynet quoted an Israeli official as saying, following examinations at the National Centre for Forensic Medicine.
The official noted that this did not constitute a violation of the agreement by Hamas, explaining, “We initially had already assessed that these remains were unlikely to belong to hostages. Still, we prefer that Hamas send any findings for verification.”
The website noted that according to the agreement reached between Israel, the mediators and Hamas, in cases of ambiguity, all the remains they obtain will be submitted for examination, as happened in this case, Xinhua news agency reported.
Of the 28 bodies that Hamas is obliged to hand over to Israel, 11 still remain in Gaza.
“The effort to return our hostages is ongoing and will not cease until the last hostage is returned,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office stated earlier this week.
The bodies, received from the Gaza Strip via the International Committee of the Red Cross, are transferred to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, before being taken to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.
Tuesday, Israel said that remains handed over by Hamas the previous night were body parts belonging to a hostage whose body had already been recovered by the Israeli army two years ago.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel regarded the handover as “a clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Netanyahu’s office said that following the identification process, “it was determined that the remains returned last night belong to the fallen hostage Ofir Tzarfati.”
Tzarfati, 27, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel during the Hamas-led assault October 7, 2023. His body was recovered by Israel in a military operation in December 2023.
