•One of the 30 bodies of Palestinian prisoners being unloaded
Israel said yesterday it had received the remains of three additional captives from Hamas as part of the ongoing hostage-prisoner exchange under a US-brokered ceasefire agreement for Gaza.
Despite occasional flare-ups, a fragile truce has held in Gaza since October 10 under a deal focused on the return of all Israeli hostages, both living and dead, reports AFP.
“Israel has received, through the Red Cross, the coffins of three fallen hostages that were handed over to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside the Gaza Strip,” the prime minister’s office said, adding the remains would be transferred to a forensic medical centre for identification in Israel.
Hamas’s armed wing said it had found the three bodies earlier yesterday “along the route of one of the tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip”.
Hamas had been holding 48 hostages in Gaza, including 20 confirmed alive when the ceasefire was announced.
Since the start of the truce, Hamas has released the 20 surviving hostages and begun handing over the remains of 28 deceased captives.
Of those, it has so far returned 17 — including 15 Israelis, one Thai national, and one Nepalese.
Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the bodies, while the Palestinian group says the process is slow because many remains are buried beneath Gaza’s rubble.
It has repeatedly called on mediators and the Red Cross to provide it with the necessary equipment and personnel to recover the bodies.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement that the handover yesterday showed that the group “was making every effort to return the bodies as quickly as possible”.
An Israeli campaign group representing the families of hostages urged the government to act decisively to ensure all the deceased are brought home.
“The Hostage Families demand that the prime minister act with determination and firmness in order to bring about the immediate realisation of Hamas’s commitments under the agreement and to return all of the deceased hostages to Israel’s hands,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
– ‘Life is impossible’ – Israel
In addition to returning 17 bodies of hostages, Hamas has also handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body had been recovered by the Israeli army last year.
That incident sparked outrage in Israel, which accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by returning only partial remains instead of a complete body of another hostage.
“We call for the return of all 11 deceased hostages who have still not been returned to Israeli soil,” Inbal Bachar, aunt of Sahar Baruch, whose remains were handed over earlier this week, said during Baruch’s funeral yesterday.
“We cannot continue our lives until they all return,” she said, according to a statement issued by the forum.
In Gaza, Palestinians have been hoping that an Israeli military withdrawal will follow the truce and bring an end to their ordeal.
“We want the second phase of the agreement to begin so that we can return to our homes,” said Naif al-Sulaibi, a resident of Jabalia in northern Gaza.
“As long as the Yellow Line and the army remain here, life is impossible and conditions will stay unbearable,” he added, referring to the de facto boundary marking Israeli military positions inside Gaza.
The implementation of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan has yet to be agreed, particularly as it concerns disarming Hamas, establishing a transitional authority and deploying an international stabilisation force in Gaza.
