Tel Aviv: The Israeli military stated Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas the previous day was not that of a hostage held in Gaza. This development has added to the existing tensions surrounding the fragile ceasefire in the two-year war.
Four bodies were handed over by Hamas Tuesday to ease pressure on the fragile ceasefire, following the first four Monday — when the last 20 living hostages were released. In all, Israel was awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.
The military said that “following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages”.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded earlier Wednesday that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal — introduced by US President Donald Trump — about the return of the hostages’ bodies.
“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” he said.
The US-proposed ceasefire plan had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand over all as soon as possible.
This is not the first time Hamas has returned a wrong body to Israel. Earlier this year during a previous ceasefire, the group said it handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons. Israelis endured another moment of agony when testing showed that one of the bodies returned was identified as a Palestinian woman.
Bibas’ body was returned a day later and positively identified.
Hazem Kassem, a spokesperson for Hamas, said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday that the group was working to return the bodies of the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal. He accused Israel of violating the deal with shootings Tuesday in eastern Gaza City and the territory’s southern city of Rafah.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday that the military is operating along the deployment lines laid out in the deal and warned that anyone approaching the deployment line will be targeted — as had happened Tuesday with several militants.
Two hostages whose bodies were released from Gaza were to buried Wednesday. The family invited the public to gather along the road Wednesday afternoon to accompany the body of one hostage as it was taken from a forensics institute to a cemetery north of Tel Aviv.
In the past, tens of thousands of Israelis have lined the streets to show respect to bodies of hostages on their way for burial, standing silently with Israeli flags.
Monday, Israelis celebrated the return of the last 20 living hostages in Gaza and Palestinians rejoiced at Israel’s release of some 2,000 prisoners and detainees as part of the ceasefire’s first phase.
Families of hostages and their supporters have expressed dismay these past days that so few of the 28 dead hostages were being released. Hamas and the Red Cross have said that recovering the remains of dead hostages was a challenge because of Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas told mediators of the truce that some are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.
By Monday night, Hamas had released four bodies, and four more followed late Tuesday.
Of that second group of four bodies, three were identified — Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levi.
Baruch was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on Israel October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
Nimrodi, who had been serving with the Israeli defence body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza, was taken by militants from the Erez border crossing. The Hostages Family Forum, a group representing many of the hostages’ families, says Levi was kidnapped while driving a friend to Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas attack.
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