Israel receives coffins Hamas says contain two Gaza hostages’ bodies
Israel, through the Red Cross in Gaza, received two coffins that the Palestinian armed group Hamas said contained the bodies of deceased hostages, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Israeli forces will now transport the bodies to the Israeli National Forensic Center for identification.
Hamas’s armed wing had previously announced that it had found the bodies of Israeli hostages Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch.
The Israeli government on Tuesday accused Hamas of violating the Gaza ceasefire agreement after it handed over a coffin containing human remains that did not belong to one of the 13 dead Israeli and foreign hostages still in Gaza.
He said forensic tests showed his body was that of hostage Ofir Tzarfati, who was captured by Israeli forces in Gaza in late 2023.
The Israeli military also released drone-shot footage showing Hamas members removing a body bag containing remains from a building in Gaza City and reburying it, then staging the discovery in front of Red Cross personnel.
The Red Cross said its staff were unaware the body bag had been moved before they arrived and that the staged recovery process was “unacceptable”.
Hamas rejected the allegations, calling them “baseless allegations” and accused Israel of “trying to invent false pretexts to prepare to take new aggressive steps.”
Hours later, the Israeli government accused Hamas of another ceasefire violation, saying the group’s fighters killed an Israeli soldier in an attack in a southern Gaza area.
Hamas has denied involvement in the incident in Rafah, but Israel’s prime minister ordered a series of airstrikes on Gaza on Tuesday night in response. The Israeli military said it attacked “dozens of terror targets and terrorists”.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 104 Palestinians, including 46 children and 20 women, were killed, the deadliest day since the ceasefire came into force on October 10.
US President Donald Trump argued that “nothing” could jeopardize the ceasefire agreement brokered by his administration along with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, but added that Israel must “respond” if its soldiers are targeted.
According to the agreement, Hamas agreed to return its 20 living and 28 dead hostages within 72 hours.
All living Israeli hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian detainees and 1,718 Gaza detainees.
Israel also handed over the bodies of 195 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of 13 Israeli hostages and two foreign hostages, one Thai and the other Nepali, who have been returned by Hamas so far.
Of the 13 hostages currently in Gaza, 11 are Israeli, one is Tanzanian and one is Thai.
All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were among 251 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed.
According to the regional health ministry, Israel responded by launching a military operation in Gaza; More than 68,600 people have been killed in this operation, more than 200 since the ceasefire came into force.
