Purple Cross automobiles carrying the our bodies of individuals believed to be deceased hostages handed over by Hamas make their means towards the Kissufim border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on Thursday.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
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Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
JERUSALEM — The stays of three folks handed over by Hamas to the Purple Cross this week don’t belong to any of the hostages, Israel stated Saturday, the newest setback that might undermine a U.S.-brokered ceasefire within the Israel-Hamas battle.
The handover adopted Israel’s return on Friday of the our bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza. That accomplished an change after militants earlier this week turned over stays of two hostages, an indication that the tense Israel-Hamas ceasefire settlement was edging ahead.
The unidentified stays of the three folks had been returned late Friday to Israel, the place they had been being examined in a single day. On the time, a navy official warned that Israeli intelligence recommended they didn’t belong to any of the hostages taken by Palestinian militants in the course of the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel that sparked the battle. The Israeli official spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to speak to the media.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace on Saturday confirmed that the stays didn’t belong to any of the hostages, with out giving additional particulars.
Hamas’ armed wing stated in a subsequent assertion that it had provided at hand over samples on Friday of unidentified our bodies, however that Israel had refused to obtain them and requested for the stays for examination.
“We handed the our bodies over to cease the claims of Israel,” the assertion stated.
It was unclear who the stays belonged to.
Because the U.S. brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took impact on Oct. 10, Palestinian militants have launched the stays of 17 hostages that had been held in Gaza for the previous two years.
However the technique of returning the our bodies of the final 11 remaining hostages, as known as for below the truce deal, is progressing slowly, with militants releasing only one or two our bodies each few days.
The entire variety of Palestinian our bodies returned by Israel for the reason that ceasefire started now stands at 225. Solely 75 of these have been recognized by households, in keeping with Gaza’s Well being Ministry. It’s unclear if these returned had been killed in Israel in the course of the Oct. 7, 2023, assault, whether or not they died in Israeli custody as detainees or had been recovered from Gaza by troops in the course of the battle.
The delicate truce confronted its greatest problem earlier this week when Israel carried out strikes throughout Gaza that killed greater than 100 folks, following the killing of an Israeli soldier in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost metropolis, and the unfinished return of hostages.
