The Red Cross on Friday (local time) received the remains of another hostage to be returned to Israel from Gaza, the Israeli military said, after Hamas worked to shore up a tenuous ceasefire by using bulldozers to help search for bodies the group says remain trapped under rubble.
The army said the coffin of a deceased hostage was on the way to Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.
The handover came after Hamas’ military wing said it would hand over the body of a hostage that was pulled out earlier in the day to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The statement from the Qassam Brigades said the remains were that of an "occupation prisoner", suggesting they belonged to an Israeli rather than one of the hostages of several other nationalities also taken by Hamas.
The Israeli military and Shin Bet security service, in a joint statement, said official identification of the remains would first be provided to the families, before adding: "Hamas is required to uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages".
Hamas has said it was committed to the terms of the ceasefire deal, including the handover of bodies. This week, Hamas, in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, has handed over to Israel the remains of nine hostages — along with a 10th body that Israel said wasn’t that of a hostage.
The effort to find bodies 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.
In a statement earlier Friday, Hamas said some hostages’ remains were in tunnels or buildings that were later destroyed by Israel, and that heavy machinery is required to dig through rubble to retrieve them. It blamed Israel for the delay, saying it had not allowed any new bulldozers into the Gaza Strip.
Most heavy equipment in Gaza was destroyed during the war, leaving only a limited amount as Palestinians try to clear massive amounts of rubble across the territory.
On Friday, two bulldozers plowed up pits in the earth as Hamas searched for hostages' remains in Hamad City, a complex of apartment towers in the city of Khan Younis. Israeli forces repeatedly bombarded the towers during the war, toppling some, and troops conducted a weeklong raid there in March 2024, fighting militants.
Hamas urged mediators to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, expedite the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and start reconstruction. It also called for work to "start immediately" on setting up a committee of Palestinian independents who will run the Gaza Strip and for Israeli troops to continue pulling back from agreed-upon areas.
The ceasefire plan introduced by Trump had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel "will not compromise" and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.
Obstacles to retrieving bodies
Hamas has assured the US through intermediaries that it's working to return dead hostages. American officials say retrieval of the bodies is hampered by the scope of the devastation, coupled with the presence of dangerous, unexploded ordnance.
The militant group has also told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops. Hamas crews were seen Saturday in Hamad City, near Khan Younis, searching for the bodies of hostages.
On Wednesday (local time), Israel received the remains of two more hostages shortly after its military said that one of eight bodies previously handed over wasn't that of a hostage. Israel is waiting for the bodies of 28 hostages to be returned.
Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages on Monday. In exchange, Israel freed around 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Israel has also returned to Gaza the bodies of 90 Palestinians for burial. Israel is expected to turn over more bodies, though officials have not said how many are in its custody or how many will be returned. It is unclear whether the remains belong to Palestinians who died in Israeli custody or were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops. Throughout the war, Israel’s military has exhumed bodies as part of its search for the remains of hostages.
A Palestinian forensics team examining the remains said some of the bodies showed signs of mistreatment.
The fighting has killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
France says international force for Gaza is in the pipeline
Meanwhile, France said it's working with its ″British and American partners″ to propose a UN resolution in the coming days that would provide a framework for the international force for Gaza.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told a news conference that Arab countries are “very insistent” on having a UN mandate for this force.
″This resolution would allow a framework for the deployment of this mission, in support ... of Palestinian security forces, who are in the process of evaluating what they will need and what they are capable of doing,″ he said.
He wouldn’t say whether France could eventually take part or what its role would be. ″First the mandate,″ he said, followed by which countries will be involved, and then specifics about who is providing what, which could include equipment, training, money.
Confavreux said aid, reconstruction and security efforts should be centralised within the UN system.
Killings in Gaza fray nerves
Hamas was also put on the defensive after Trump warned that “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them ” if the militant group didn't cease killings of rival factions inside Gaza.
Trump said it won't be US forces that will mete out any punishment but "people very close, very nearby that will go in and they’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices”.
The president did not specify if he was speaking of Israel, but action by Israeli forces could risk violating terms of the ceasefire agreement.
A Hamas official on Friday defended the killings of alleged gang members that the militant group carried out in Gaza since Monday.
Speaking in Beirut, Hamas' political representative in Lebanon Ahmed Abdul-Hadi said the individuals who were killed “caused death and corruption in Gaza and killed displaced persons and aid seekers".
Hadi said the decision to sentence them to death had come from the “judiciary”, apparently referring to tribal customary judicial procedures. There are no functioning formal courts in the war-battered enclave.
“This was done by a Palestinian national and tribal consensus,” he said. “I mean, their clan agreed to this and not just Hamas.”
Wait for a large infusion of aid into Gaza goes on
The UN said the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza remains constrained because of continued closures of crossings and restrictions on aid groups.
According to the UN dashboard that monitors the movement of aid trucks into Gaza, only 339 trucks reached the territory and were offloaded for distribution since the ceasefire began on October 10. Under the ceasefire agreement, 600 aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza daily.
The UN figures varied widely from those provided by COGAT, an Israeli defence body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza. A spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said COGAT had reported 950 trucks crossing on Thursday and 716 on Wednesday. Crossings were closed on Monday and Tuesday (local time) for the exchange of hostages and prisoners and for a Jewish holiday.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said rapid and unimpeded access, sustained fuel entry, restored infrastructure, protection of aid workers, and adequate funding are needed for the UN’s 60-day aid delivery plan to work.
Currently, only 15 humanitarian organisations are authorised by Israel to deliver aid into Gaza.
Gaza’s truck drivers’ association, which organises pickups of aid from the Gaza side of the border after Israeli inspection, said there has been no significant ramping up of supplies arriving since the ceasefire. But it cited improved security that has prevented looting or gangs from intercepting aid convoys.
“There is no breakthrough,” said Nahed Sheheiber, the head of Gaza's private truckers' union. “There is no improvement except in one thing, the security of trucks that enables them to reach the warehouses.”
Only 70 trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, Sheheiber said, adding that the wait time for truck inspections and coordination is still long.
Since the beginning of the ceasefire, at least nine humanitarian organisations have gradually resumed services in Gaza City and parts of northern Gaza for displaced families and returnees, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs report released Thursday.
SHARE ME