GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Israel returned on Wednesday the remains of 15 more Palestinian prisoners via Red Cross teams to the Gaza Strip under a ceasefire deal, the Health Ministry said.

The latest transfer brought the number of Palestinian bodies transferred by Israel to 345 since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10.

A ministry statement said that forensic teams have so far identified 99 bodies out of 345 handed over without any documentation.

Families have been trying to identify the remains of their relatives by physical markings or clothing, as forensic facilities in Gaza remain out of service due to a years-long Israeli blockade and the destruction of laboratories.

The Health Ministry earlier said that many of the bodies handed over by Israel showed signs of abuse, including beatings, bound hands, blindfolds, and facial disfigurement, and were returned without names.

Before the ceasefire, Israel held 735 Palestinian bodies in so-called “cemeteries of numbers,” according to the Palestinian National Campaign to Retrieve Martyrs’ Bodies.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the army has been holding about 1,500 bodies of Palestinians from Gaza at the notorious Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured 171,000 others in a brutal war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.