Israel receives coffin that Hamas says contains Gaza hostage’s body

Israel has received, through the Red Cross, a coffin that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) say contains the body of one of three hostages still dead in Gaza, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office.

The Israeli military will now transfer the body to Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.

Earlier, PIJ and Hamas announced that the body of an Israeli hostage was found in central Gaza on Monday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warned that it was taking “seriously the delay in the immediate transfer” of the bodies, saying it was a “further violation” of the six-week-old Gaza ceasefire agreement.

Following the handover in central Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, the office announced that the families of the three dead hostages had been updated accordingly.

“Our hearts go out to them at this difficult time,” it said. “The effort to bring back our hostages continues and will not stop until the last hostage is returned.”

Under the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, which took effect on October 10, Hamas agreed to return within 72 hours the bodies of 20 living Israeli hostages and 28 dead Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza.

All surviving hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

So far, the remains of 22 dead Israeli hostages have been handed over, as well as the remains of three foreign hostages – among them a Thai, a Nepalese and a Tanzanian.

In return, Israel has handed over the bodies of 330 Palestinians killed during the war.

Of the three remaining dead hostages, two are Israeli – Ran Gwili, 24, and Dror Or, 48 – and a Thai – Suthisak Rintalak, 43.

Israel has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the bodies, while Hamas has insisted that it is struggling to find bodies under the debris.

Slow progress means there has been no progress on the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. This includes governance of Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli troops, disarmament of Hamas and reconstruction plans.

The hostages still dead in Gaza were among 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, during which about 1,200 others were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 69,770 people have been killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.