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TEL AVIV: Israel said the remains of another hostage that Hamas handed over the day before were identified as Eliyahu Margalit, as the Palestinian death toll surpassed 68,000 people amid searching beneath the rubble.
Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said Saturday that Margalit’s body was identified after testing by the National Center for Forensic Medicine and his family has been notified.
The 76-year-old was abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, from the horse stables where he worked in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Margalit is the 10th returned hostage body since the ceasefire went into effect over a week ago.
Hamas handed over an 11th body this week, but it wasn’t that of a hostage.
The effort to find the remains followed a warning from US President Donald Trump that he would green-light Israel to resume the war if Hamas doesn’t live up to its end of the deal and return all hostages’ bodies, totaling 28.
Hamas has said it is committed to the terms of the ceasefire deal, including the handover of bodies. However, the retrieval of bodies is hampered by the scope of the devastation and the presence of dangerous, unexploded ordnance.

The group has also told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that more than 68,000 Palestinians have been killed in the two-year-long war. The ministry said the number of dead has climbed since the ceasefire went into effect, with the majority of the newly counted dead bodies being found during recovery efforts under the rubble.
The figures of the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in the territory, are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by UN agencies and many independent experts.
Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.

BAGHDAD: Armed gunmen opened fire early Saturday on the office of an Iraqi parliamentary candidate south of Baghdad, wounding two bodyguards, a security source said.
The attack on Sunni Muslim politician Muthanna Al-Azzawi’s office comes days after a bomb killed another candidate in the November 11 elections for the Shiite-majority parliament.
The gunmen fled after the attack in Yusufiyah, 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of the capital, the source told AFP.
Azzawi is a member of the Baghdad provincial council and belongs to the “Azem Alliance,” a centrist Sunni coalition led by Muthanna Al-Samarrai.
The candidate “firmly condemned the cowardly attack,” saying: “These acts will not stop us from continuing to serve our people.”
“The attackers will be punished for their actions sooner or later,” Azzawi added on his Facebook page.
A bomb killed fellow Baghdad provincial council member and election candidate Safaa Al-Mashhadani on Wednesday when it exploded under his car north of the city.
It also wounded three of his bodyguards.
Mashhadani was running with the Sovereignty Alliance, one of Iraq’s largest Sunni Muslim coalitions, led by businessman Khamis Al-Khanjar and parliament speaker Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani.
The coalition condemned the “cowardly crime,” calling it “an extension of the approach of exclusion, targeting and treachery pursued by the forces of uncontrolled weapons and terrorism, all of which seek to silence free national voices.”
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the attack on Mashhadani and called for the perpetrators’ arrests.
The majority of Iraq’s 329 lawmakers represent Shiite parties aligned with neighboring Iran.
The upcoming elections are the sixth since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein.
In Iraq, the role of prime minister traditionally goes to a Shiite and the presidency to a Kurd, while the speaker of parliament is usually Sunni.