Hamas has transferred two coffins to the Red Cross in Gaza, which the Palestinian group claims hold the bodies of two Israeli hostages. The Israeli military confirmed that these bodies will be passed to their forces within Gaza before being sent to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Israel for official identification.
This action follows Hamas’s armed wing’s earlier announcement of recovering the bodies of Israeli hostages Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch. The situation is tense, especially after a recent incident where Israel accused Hamas of breaching the Gaza ceasefire. This occurred when Hamas provided a coffin with human remains that did not match those of the 13 deceased Israeli and foreign hostages still held in Gaza. Forensic analysis later identified the remains as belonging to Ofir Tzarfati, a hostage whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in late 2023.
The Israeli military released drone footage purportedly showing Hamas members moving a body bag from a Gaza City building, reburying it, and then staging the handover to Red Cross personnel. The Red Cross has stated that its staff were unaware of the body bag’s relocation prior to their arrival and deemed the staged recovery unacceptable.
Hamas has refuted these claims, calling them “baseless allegations” and suggesting Israel is attempting to create “false pretexts” for further aggression. The Israeli government later accused Hamas of another ceasefire violation, alleging that Hamas fighters were responsible for the death of an Israeli soldier in southern Gaza. Hamas, however, denied involvement in the Rafah incident, but in response, Israel’s prime minister ordered widespread air strikes across Gaza, which the military described as targeting “dozens of terror targets and terrorists”.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported that 104 Palestinians, including 46 children and 20 women, were killed in the latest escalation, marking it as the deadliest day since the ceasefire began on October 10th.
US President Donald Trump expressed confidence that the ceasefire would hold, emphasizing that the agreement brokered by the US, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey remained intact. However, he also stated that Israel should retaliate when its soldiers are targeted.
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas was expected to release all 20 living and 28 dead hostages within 72 hours. While all living Israeli hostages were released on October 13th in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza, the exchange of bodies has been more complex. Israel has so far received the bodies of 13 Israeli hostages and two foreign nationals, in return for handing over the bodies of 195 Palestinians. Of the 13 dead hostages still in Gaza, eleven are Israeli, one is Tanzanian, and one is Thai.
The majority of the deceased hostages still in Gaza were among the 251 individuals abducted during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 fatalities. Israel’s subsequent military operation in Gaza has led to over 68,600 reported deaths, with more than 200 occurring since the ceasefire commenced, according to Gaza’s health ministry.