The Israeli military said Wednesday that one among the bodies handed over by Hamas the day past as a part of the ceasefire deal is just not that of a hostage who was held in Gaza, adding to tensions over the delicate truce within the two-year conflict.
4 bodies were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday to ease pressure on the ceasefire, following an earlier 4 on Monday — hours after the last 20 living hostages were released. In all, Israel has been awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.
Israel, which released around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Monday, can be handing over bodies of Palestinians under the deal, a step awaited by many families in Gaza whose relatives went missing throughout the conflict.
The military said that after the “examinations on the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas doesn’t match any of the hostages.” There was no immediate word on whose body it was.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded earlier Wednesday that Hamas fulfill the necessities specified by the ceasefire deal — introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump — in regards to the return of the hostages’ bodies.
“We won’t compromise on this and won’t stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” Netanyahu said.
The U.S.-proposed ceasefire plan had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired on Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t occur, Hamas was to share details about deceased hostages and take a look at at hand over all as soon as possible.
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This is just not the primary time Hamas has returned a fallacious body to Israel. Earlier this yr during a previous ceasefire, the group said it handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons. Israelis endured one other moment of agony when testing showed that one among the bodies returned was identified as a Palestinian woman.
Bibas’ body was returned a day later and positively identified.
Hamas and the Red Cross have said that recovering the stays of dead hostages was a challenge due to Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas has told mediators of the truce that some are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.
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 within the ceasefire deal. He accused Israel of violating the cope with shootings Tuesday in eastern Gaza City and the territory’s southern city of Rafah.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday the military is working along the deployment lines specified by the deal and warned that anyone approaching the deployment line will probably be targeted — as had happened on Tuesday with several militants.
Two hostages whose bodies were released from Gaza were to be buried on Wednesday. The family invited the general public to assemble along the road within the afternoon to accompany the body of 1 hostage from a forensics institute to a cemetery north of Tel Aviv.
Individually, forensic experts in Gaza on Wednesday began identifying 45 bodies of Palestinians that Israel handed over through the Red Cross the day past without identification. Israel is predicted to transfer more bodies, though the overall number has not been announced.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the bodies were those of people that died in Israeli prisons or bodies taken from Gaza by Israeli troops. In the course of the conflict, the Israeli military has exhumed bodies as a part of its seek for the stays of hostages.
The doorway of humanitarian aid to Gaza was paused for the past two days attributable to the prisoner and hostage exchange on Monday and a Jewish holiday Tuesday.
The Egyptian Red Crescent said 400 trucks carrying food, fuel, and medical supplies were certain for the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, while Israel and Hamas argue over the slow return of the bodies of deceased hostages.
The Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza, COGAT, notified humanitarian organizations on Tuesday that it might allow into Gaza only half of the 600 day by day aid trucks called for under the deal.
It was not immediately clear whether it was following through on the threat. COGAT declined to comment on the variety of trucks expected to enter Gaza on Wednesday.
On 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 a part of the ceasefire’s first phase.
Families of hostages and their supporters have expressed dismay these past days that so few of the dead hostages were being released. Hamas and the Red Cross have said that recovering the stays of dead hostages was a challenge due to Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas told mediators of the truce that some are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.
The primary 4 bodies released were all identified as hostages and of the second group of 4 bodies, three were identified — Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levi.
Baruch was kidnapped from the Nova music festival throughout the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the conflict in Gaza.
Nimrodi, who had been serving with the Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza, was taken by militants from the Erez border crossing. The Hostages Family Forum, a bunch representing most of the hostages’ families, says Levi was kidnapped while driving a friend to Kibbutz Be’eri throughout the Hamas attack.
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