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CAIRO: Israel on Tuesday received a body from Hamas via the Red Cross in Gaza, the Prime Minister’s Office said, after the Palestinian group reported it had found the remains of an Israeli hostage to be handed over. The office confirmed the body was that of Staff Sergeant Itay Chen following an identification process.
Hamas said it had found the body of a hostage who had been held by Palestinian militants in Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City in an area still occupied by Israeli forces, after Israel granted access to the location for teams from Hamas and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Under a ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10, Hamas turned over all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held in Israel. Hamas also promised to turn over the remains of deceased hostages but says Gaza’s war devastation has made locating bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.
Including Chen, Hamas has returned 21 of the 28 bodies of hostages that were buried in Gaza. In return, Israel handed over 270 bodies of Palestinians it had killed since the war began in October 2023, Gaza health authorities said.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip killed over 68,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.
Chen was serving as a soldier when Hamas carried out the surprise rampage through southern Israeli towns and military bases.
The US-brokered ceasefire has broadly held through repeated incidents of violence. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes since the truce took effect, nearly half of them in a single day last week when Israel retaliated for a militant attack on its troops.
Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed and it has targeted scores of militants it says have approached lines behind which Israeli troops have withdrawn under the truce.
Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire killed a man in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Israel’s military said it killed a “terrorist” who crossed into areas the army continues to occupy and posed an imminent threat.