Hamas hands over body of one more Israeli hostage, vows to return rest

Hamas handed over the remains of one more Israeli hostage on Friday night, after insisting it was committed to returning all the dead captives still unaccounted for under Gaza's ruins after two years of conflict.

A coffin containing the remains of an unidentified Israeli hostage held in Gaza was handed over to the Red Cross, the IDF said early Saturday in a statement.

In a post on X, Israel's military said the coffin, escorted by IDF troops, crossed the border into Israel on its way to the National Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification procedures.

The IDF urged the public "to act with sensitivity and wait for official identification, which will first be communicated to the families of the deceased hostages."

This was the 10th body of an Israeli hostage that Hamas has handed over this week, out of 28 bodies it is obliged to return under the first phase of the Gaza peace plan.

Hamas on Monday released 20 live Israeli hostages who had been held in Gaza for two years.

In exchange, Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails and halted the military campaign it launched in Gaza after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.

Bodies under rubble

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday reaffirmed his determination to "secure the return of all hostages," and his defense minister has warned that fighting in Gaza will restart if Hamas fails to do so.

Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad on Friday called those threats "unacceptable pressure tactics."

"The issue of the bodies is complex and requires time, especially after the occupation changed the landscape of Gaza," Hamad said in a statement.

"We will return the bodies and adhere to the agreement as we promised."

Gaza's civil defense agency, a rescue force that operates under Hamas authority, said more than 280 bodies had been recovered from the rubble since the ceasefire went into effect.

Increasing aid enters Gaza

The ceasefire deal has seen the conflict grind to a halt after two years of agony for the hostages' families, and constant bombardment and hunger for Gaza's residents.

The UN's World Food Program said on Friday it had been able to move close to 3,000 tonnes of food supplies into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold.

But it cautioned it would take time to reverse the famine in the Strip, saying all crossings needed to be opened to "flood Gaza with food."

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said he entered Gaza on Friday, where he saw a convoy of aid head to Rafah from Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing and later visited a bakery making pita bread.

"We've begged for this access for months and finally we're seeing goods moving at scale: food, medicine, tents, fuel, a lot of fuel got in today," he said, in a video message posted to social media.

Fletcher said that with humanitarian teams scale up life-saving work, the challenges ahead are immense, but they are determined to deliver on the humanitarian possibilities created by the peace deal.

(With input from agencies)