JERUSALEM/ ISTANBUL
Israel said that remains returned from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday do not belong to either of the two captives still in the enclave.
The Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv said the remains were not of the two hostages who remain unaccounted for in Gaza, the public broadcaster KAN reported.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office earlier said that “findings” were handed over by Red Cross teams to the Israeli forces inside Gaza.
A senior Red Cross official told The Times of Israel that the transfer included “small remains, pieces” of a body.
Hamas did not issue any statement about the remains.
On Sunday, Husam Badran, a member of the group’s political bureau, told Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel that the issue of the bodies is a “pretext used by the Israeli occupation to avoid fulfilling its obligations.”
Israel ties the start of negotiations for launching the second phase of the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10 to receiving the bodies of all its captives. It claims that the remains of two Israeli captives are still in Gaza, while Hamas says it has handed over all 20 Israeli captives who were alive and the remains of all 28 who were killed.
Meanwhile, there are 9,500 missing Palestinians killed by the Israeli army whose bodies remain under the rubble, according to Gaza’s Media Office.
The ceasefire deal halted two years of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 others since October 2023.
Israel has repeatedly violated the agreement by opening fire on Palestinian civilians in areas it does not control under the deal, while Hamas has announced its full commitment to the terms of the agreement and urged the US to pressure Israel to comply.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 357 Palestinians have been killed and more than 900 others injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire.