The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the army, through Red Cross crews, received a coffin containing the body of a prisoner in the Gaza Strip.
He explained in a statement that the coffin was taken from inside the sector to the army forces and the “Shin Bet” agency, and from there it will be returned to inside Israel, where it will be received with a military ceremony in the presence of a military rabbi, before being transferred to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health.
The office indicated that after the completion of the examination and identification procedures, the family of the deceased will be officially notified, adding that all families of the deceased prisoners have been informed of the latest developments.
The Israeli occupation army said in a brief statement on Friday evening: "According to information provided by the Red Cross, the coffin of one of the abductees was handed over to them, and they are on their way to one of our forces in the Gaza Strip."
He added via his X platform account: “The Israeli army asks the public to act sensitively and wait for official verification of the identity of the kidnapped person who will be handed over.” He continued: “Hamas must abide by the agreement and make every effort to bring back the dead kidnapped.”
For his part, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement that "the relevant authorities in the movement are continuing their efforts to complete the exchange process related to handing over the remaining bodies of the occupation prisoners, despite the great difficulties and complications."
Thus, since the first phase of the ceasefire agreement came into effect on October 10, the Palestinian factions have handed over 20 living Israeli prisoners and the remains of 24 others out of 28.
But Israel claimed that one of the bodies it received did not belong to any of its prisoners, and that another set of remains was not new but rather the remains of a prisoner whose remains had already been received.
Israel is conditioning the start of negotiations to launch the second phase of the agreement on receiving the remaining bodies of the prisoners, while Hamas asserts that it will take time to retrieve them due to the massive destruction in Gaza.
In contrast, there are 9,500 missing Palestinians killed by the occupation army, and their bodies are still under the rubble of the Israeli war of extermination, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
More than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including children and women, are held in Israeli prisons, where they suffer torture, starvation, and medical neglect, and many of them have been killed, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
The ceasefire agreement halted an Israeli genocidal war on Gaza that began on October 8, 2023, leaving approximately 69,000 Palestinian martyrs and more than 170,000 wounded, most of them children and women, with reconstruction estimated by the United Nations to cost around $70 billion.
