By MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY, TEL AVIV, Israel (AP):- The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas the previous day as part of the ceasefire deal is not that of a hostage who was held in Gaza, adding to tensions over the fragile truce in the two-year war.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said it received 45 additional bodies of Palestinians from Israel, another step in implementation of the agreement. The bodies of 90 Palestinians have now been transferred. It was unclear whether the deceased had died in Israeli custody or were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops while searching for hostages.
Four bodies of hostages had been handed over by Hamas on Tuesday, following four on Monday — hours after the last 20 living hostages were released from Gaza. In all, Israel has been awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.
Israel released around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Monday.
Israel’s military said that after the “examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages.” There was no immediate word on whose body it was.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal — introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump — about the return of the hostages’ bodies.
“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” Netanyahu said.
Challenges around returning bodies
The ceasefire plan had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired on Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand over all as soon as possible.
This is not the first time Hamas has returned a wrong body to Israel. Earlier this year during a previous ceasefire, the group said it handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons. Israelis endured more agony when testing showed that one of the bodies returned was identified as a Palestinian woman. Bibas’ body was returned a day later.
Hamas and the Red Cross have said that recovering the remains of dead hostages was a challenge because of Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas has told mediators that some are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.
Hazem Kassem, a Hamas spokesperson, said on the Telegram messaging app that the group was working to return the bodies of the hostages as agreed.
Kassem also accused Israel of violating the deal with shootings on Tuesday in eastern Gaza City and the southern city of Rafah.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said the military is operating along the deployment lines troops withdrew to under the deal, and warned that anyone approaching the deployment line will be targeted — as happened on Tuesday with several militants.
Two hostages whose bodies were released from Gaza were being buried on Wednesday.
Desperately needed aid to Gaza
The entrance of humanitarian aid to Gaza had been paused due to the exchange on Monday and a Jewish holiday on Tuesday.
The Egyptian Red Crescent said 400 trucks carrying food, fuel, and medical supplies were bound for Gaza on Wednesday.
The Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza, COGAT, notified humanitarian organizations on Tuesday that it would allow into Gaza only half of the 600 daily aid trucks called for under the deal amid the concerns over the slow release of hostages’ bodies.
It was not immediately clear whether Israel was following through on the threat. COGAT declined to comment on the number of trucks expected to enter Gaza on Wednesday.
“Throughout this crisis, we have insisted that withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip,” U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.