Hamas hands over coffin to Red Cross said to contain body of Gaza hostage

Hamas has handed over to the Red Cross in northern Gaza a coffin containing what the Palestinian group says is the body of a dead hostage, according to the Israeli military.

The remains will be handed over to Israeli forces, who will take them to the National Center for Foreign Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.

Earlier, the armed wing of Hamas announced that it had found the body of an Israeli soldier in the eastern Shejaya neighborhood of Gaza City.

Israel allowed members of the group and Red Cross officials to search for the remains in the area, which is in territory still controlled by Israeli forces.

The Israeli government has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the dead hostages after a ceasefire agreement took effect more than three weeks ago.

Hamas insisted it was difficult to find the bodies under the rubble.

Under a US-brokered cease-fire agreement that took effect on October 10, Hamas agreed to return 20 living and 28 dead hostages it still holds within 72 hours.

All living Israeli hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 Gazan detainees.

Israel handed over the bodies of 270 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 18 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas before Tuesday, along with those of two foreign hostages – one Thai and the other Nepalese.

Six of the eight dead hostages who were still in Gaza before Tuesday were Israeli, one was Tanzanian and one was Thai.

All but one of the dead hostages, still in Gaza, were among 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 others were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza that killed more than 68,800 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Earlier on Tuesday, a hospital official in Gaza City said a man was killed by Israeli fire in the Jabalia area of ​​northern Gaza.

The Israeli army said its troops killed a “terrorist” who had crossed the “yellow line” that demarcates Israeli-controlled territory and posed a threat to them.