Israel, through the Red Cross, received a coffin containing the body of one of the last two dead hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Israeli military will now transport the body to the Israel National Institute of Forensic Science in Tel Aviv for identification.
The PIJ military unit previously announced the discovery of the hostage’s body in the northern Gaza Strip.
The handover came hours after test results showed that another set of remains the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office received from Hamas on Tuesday did not belong to either of the dead hostages.
One of the two men is Israeli police officer Ran Gbili (24), and the other is Thai agricultural worker Sutisak Rintalak (43).
Israeli and Thai authorities said both men were killed when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and their bodies were taken to the Gaza Strip.
Under the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement that went into effect on October 10, Hamas agreed to repatriate within 72 hours the bodies of 20 living Israeli hostages and 28 dead Israeli and foreign hostages still in Gaza.
On October 13, all living hostages were released, in exchange for the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 Gaza detainees.
So far, the bodies of 23 dead Israeli hostages and 3 foreign hostages have been delivered. Among them, one Thai, one Nepalese, and one Tanzanian were included.
In return, Israel handed over the bodies of 345 Palestinians killed during the war.
Israel accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the hostages’ bodies, and claimed that Hamas was struggling to find the bodies in the rubble.
The slow pace means no progress is being made on the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. These include governance of the Gaza Strip, withdrawal of Israeli troops, disarmament of Hamas, and reconstruction plans.
The two hostages who still remain in Gaza were among 251 people kidnapped by Hamas and its allies on October 7, 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed.
Israel responded to the attacks by launching a military operation in Gaza, during which more than 70,100 people were killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
