The Israeli authorities announced that they had received the remains of the Israeli hostage through the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Wednesday. The Israeli Armed Forces later stated that the coffin was transported to Israel and headed to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for an autopsy to identify the body.
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The Jewish state said in a press statement that “Israel received, through the Red Cross, the coffin of the deceased hostage, and it was handed over to the army and Shin Bet (internal security) forces in the Gaza Strip.”
The armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement announced earlier that it, along with its local ally, the Islamic Jihad movement, would return the hostage’s body at five o’clock in the evening local time (12 noon Brazilian time). A Hamas source explained to Agence France-Presse that the two organizations, which several countries consider “terrorist,” were conducting inspections in Beit Lahia in the northern Palestinian territories, and “found remains that may be the body of an Israeli prisoner.”
The previous day, Islamist groups handed over another body, but Israel said on Wednesday that those remains did not belong to either hostage who remained in Gaza.
The Israeli government said: “After completing the identification process conducted at the National Forensic Center, it became clear that the items brought yesterday for examination from the Gaza Strip have no relation to any of the hostages.”
The last two hostages to be killed were Israeli police officers Ran Givli and Thai Sudthisak Rinthalak, both of whom were kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – an incident that sparked a devastating two-year war in the Gaza Strip. In October, a US-brokered truce entered into force in the region, although Israeli forces continued to carry out bombings in the besieged Strip.
Under the truce agreement, the Palestinian Islamic Movement released the last 20 hostages who were kidnapped that day and are still alive. Since then, Hamas and its allies have also returned 26 of the 28 bodies of hostages they pledged to hand over to Israel under the ceasefire. The remaining two bodies are an Israeli and a Thai.