•Israeli soldiers carry the coffin of Yona Efraim Feldbaum during his funeral in Jerusalem on Wednesday
Israel said yesterday that it had identified the remains of hostages Amiram Kuper and Sahar Baruch, whose bodies were returned by Hamas earlier in the day.
A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the families of the deceased men had been informed after “completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine”.
Militants took 251 people hostage during Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, reports AFP.
Sahar Baruch was taken from kibbutz Beeri to Gaza and killed during a failed army rescue operation two months later. He was 25 when he died.
Amiram Kuper, 84 at the time of his abduction, was kidnapped with his wife Nourit Kuper from their home in kibbutz Nir Oz.
Israel announced his death in captivity in June 2024.
Militants have so far returned the remains of 17 of the 28 deceased hostages that Hamas had agreed to hand over as part of a US-brokered truce deal with Israel.
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, expressed its support for the families of Kuper and Baruch, and called for the return of the bodies of the remaining dead hostages.
Israel launched a wave of strikes on Gaza overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday after an attack that left an Israeli soldier dead in the south of the Palestinian territory.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, said the strikes killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children, in the worst night of bombing since the truce went into effect on October 10.
By Wednesday morning, Israel said it had begun “renewed enforcement of the ceasefire”, and both US President Donald Trump and regional mediator Qatar said they expected it to hold.
Hamas has said its fighters had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah” and reaffirmed its commitment to the truce.
It also delayed handing over what it said were the remains of a deceased hostage, adding that any “escalation will hinder the search, excavation and recovery of the bodies”.
The militant group drew outrage in Israel on Monday after it returned the partial remains of a previously recovered captive, which Israel said was a breach of the truce.
Hamas had said the remains were the 16th body it had agreed to return, but Israeli forensic examination determined they were in fact partial remains of a hostage whose body had already been brought back to Israel around two years ago, according to the prime minister’s office.
After the start of this month’s ceasefire, the group returned the 20 surviving captives still in its custody and began the process of returning the bodies of the dead hostages.
Israel accuses Hamas of reneging on the deal by not returning them quickly enough, but the Palestinian group says it will take time to locate remains buried in Gaza’s ruins.
