Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, handed over the apparent remains of two deceased hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday, initiating an urgent identification process by Israeli authorities. The transfer, which took place near the Kissufim border crossing in central Gaza, is a key, yet fraught, component of the ongoing ceasefire agreement.
The bodies were subsequently transferred from the Red Cross to Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops inside the Gaza Strip. The caskets were inspected by the military and draped in the Israeli flag before being moved to Israel proper.
Once across the border, police escorted the remains to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv. Officials indicate that the meticulous identification process could take up to two days. Hamas did not publicly disclose the identities of the individuals at the time of the handover.
Should the bodies be confirmed as those of hostages abducted on October 7, it would lower the number of deceased captives believed to be remaining in Gaza to eleven. The current exchange comes after a nine-day gap since the last return of remains.
The delay has fueled Israeli accusations that Hamas is intentionally obstructing the full implementation of the ceasefire deal, which took effect on October 10. The original agreement required the immediate return of all 48 remaining hostages, both living and deceased, within 72 hours.
While Hamas complied with the release of the twenty living hostages, the return of the deceased has been significantly slower. The group initially delivered only four of the 28 bodies believed to be held, and has since returned only eleven more prior to Thursday’s transfer.
Compounding the tension was a Monday handover in which Hamas presented what it claimed were the remains of a recently slain hostage. Israeli analysis, however, revealed the remains to belong to Ofir Tzarfati, whose body had already been recovered by the IDF in December 2023, an act Israel characterized as a staged deception.
The fragility of the truce was highlighted earlier this week by a series of events that temporarily fractured the calm. On Tuesday, Hamas initially announced it would hand over a body but then postponed the transfer, citing alleged Israeli “violations.”
This postponement followed a large wave of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Tuesday night. The strikes were a response to a terror operative killing an Israeli soldier in Rafah, as well as the revelation of the Monday incident involving the staged recovery of the Tzarfati remains. Gaza health authorities reported more than 100 fatalities in the Israeli strikes. The ceasefire was ultimately re-established on Wednesday morning.
Israel has repeatedly charged that the militant group is fully aware of the whereabouts of most, if not all, of the remaining bodies and is purposely stalling and manipulating the retrieval process for leverage.
