Israel Confirms Two Bodies Returned Tuesday Not Hostage-Owned In Gaza
JAKARTA - Israeli authorities said the bodies returned from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday did not belong to any of the two hostages still in the Palestinian enclave.
The Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Institute in Tel Aviv said the bodies did not belong to the two hostages still missing in Gaza, the KAN public broadcaster reported, quoted from Anadolu (3/12).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office earlier said the "discovery" was handed over by the Red Cross team to Israeli forces in Gaza.
A senior Red Cross official told The Times of Israel the transfer included "small remains, pieces" of the body.
Meanwhile, the militant group Hamas did not issue any statement about the body.
Earlier, a member of the political bureau Hamas Husam Badran on Sunday told Al Jazeera's channel the issuance of the body was "a pretext used by the Israeli occupation to avoid fulfilling its obligations."
On the other hand, Israel attributed the start of negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement effective on October 10 to the receipt of the bodies of all its prisoners.
Israel claims the bodies of two Israeli prisoners are still in Gaza, while Hamas says it has handed over all 20 surviving Israeli prisoners and the bodies of 28 dead prisoners.
Meanwhile, there were 9,500 Palestinians who were missing and killed by Israeli soldiers, whose bodies were still buried in the rubble, according to the Gaza Media Office.
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The ceasefire deal halted Israeli attacks over two years that have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 171,000 others since October 2023.
Israel has repeatedly violated the treaty by firing Palestinian civilians in territory it does not control under the treaty, while Hamas has announced its full commitment to the terms of the agreement and urged the US to pressure Israel to comply.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 357 Palestinians have been killed and more than 900 others have been injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire.