Israel receives coffin Hamas says contains body of Gaza hostage

Israel has received a coffin that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said contains the body of a hostage, Israel’s military says.

Hamas’s armed wing said the body had been found on Friday in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The body has been transported to Israel via the Red Cross for identification.

Before this handover, Hamas had returned all 20 living hostages and 22 out of 28 deceased hostages under the first phase of a ceasefire deal that started on 10 October. Five of the six dead hostages still in Gaza were Israelis and one was Thai.

Israel has criticised Hamas for not yet returning all the bodies. Hamas says it is hard to find them under rubble.

During the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Israel has also handed over the bodies of 285 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 19 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas, along with those of three foreign hostages – one of them Thai, one Nepalese and one Tanzanian.

The parties also agreed to an increase of aid to the Gaza Strip, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt to fighting, although violence has flared up as both sides accused one another of breaching the deal.

Israel launched air strikes after accusing Hamas fighters of killing two of its soldiers on 19 October and of killing another soldier on 28 October. Hamas said it was unaware of clashes in the area of the first incident and had no connection to the second attack.

Israeli military actions have killed at least 241 people since the start of the ceasefire, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage. All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were abducted in the attack.

At least 68,875 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, the health ministry reported.