Hamas to give Israel another hostage body, vows to return rest

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip

Hamas promised to hand over to Israel the remains of one more hostage on Friday night, after insisting it was committed to returning all the dead captives still unaccounted for under Gaza's ruins.

The Hamas armed wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, did not say whose remains would be handed over, only that they were pulled out earlier in the day, nor where they would be handed over.

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.

Hamas has said it was committed to the terms of the ceasefire deal, including the handover of bodies.

Türkiye, responding to a Hamas call for help in finding the remaining hostage bodies, has dispatched a team of specialists to help retrieve remains buried under the rubble, but the group was still waiting Friday for Israeli permission to enter the territory.

The 81-member team from Türkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) is equipped with specialised search-and-rescue tools, including life-detection devices and trained search dogs.

"It remains unclear when Israel will allow the Turkish team to enter Gaza," a Turkish official told AFP, noting the team's mission included locating both Palestinian and hostage remains

A Hamas source told AFP the Turkish delegation was expected to enter by Sunday.

Under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas spearheaded by U.S. President Donald Trump, Hamas returned 20 surviving hostages and the remains of nine of 28 known deceased ones, along with another body which Israel has said was not that of a former hostage.

In exchange, Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails and halted the military campaign it launched in Gaza after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

Hamas said Friday that as part of the deal, its armed wing "will hand over the body of one of the Israeli captives, which was recovered today in the Gaza Strip, at 11:00 pm Gaza time (2000 GMT)".

'May require some time'

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on Thursday his determination to "secure the return of all hostages", and his defence minister has warned that the military will restart the war if Hamas fails to do so.

Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad on Friday called those threats "unacceptable pressure tactics."

"The issue of the bodies is complex and requires time, especially after the occupation changed the landscape of Gaza," Hamad said in a statement.

"We will return the bodies and adhere to the agreement as we promised."

The ceasefire deal has so far seen the war grind to a halt after two years of agony for the hostages' families, and constant bombardment and hunger for Gazans.

The U.N.'s World Food Programme said on Friday it had been able to move close to 3,000 tonnes of food supplies into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold.

But it cautioned it would take time to reverse the famine in the Strip, saying all crossings needed to be opened to "flood Gaza with food."

Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza calls for renewed aid provision, with international organisations eagerly awaiting the reopening of southern Gaza's strategic Rafah crossing.

U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher entered Gaza on Friday, where he watched a convoy of aid head to Rafah from Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing and later visited a bakery making pita bread.

"We've begged for this access for months and finally we're seeing goods moving at scale: food, medicine, tents, fuel, a lot of fuel got in today," he said, in a video message posted to social media.