Ceasefire under pressure in repatriated body mystery

Confusion surrounds aid deliveries into Gaza as a row brews over the return and identity of deceased Israeli hostages

- JAMES C. REYNOLDS

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is under pressure after Israel said a body returned among the remains of hostages did not correspond to any of the captives.

The Israeli military said yesterday morning that one of four bodies repatriated late on Tuesday did not match any of the 21 still believed to be in Gaza.

Relatives identified the bodies of Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levy, after the remains of Guy Illouz, Bipin Joshi, Yossi Sharabi and Daniel Peretz were returned on Monday. Hamas released all 20 living hostages still in its custody on the same day.

The Palestinian group handed back the remains of two more hostages yesterday, hours after the Israeli military revealed a body was not one of the hostages. The confusion added to tensions over the fragile truce that has paused the two-year war.

The two bodies were transferred by the Red Cross from Hamas. After the coffins arrived in Israel, the military, in a statement, cautioned that the hostages’ identities had yet to be verified.

Hamas said in a statement that it has returned all the bodies it could reasonably recover and will require special equipment to hand over the remaining ones.

The Red Cross said the difficulties of finding bodies amid Gaza’s rubble will cause delays. “That’s an even bigger challenge than having the people alive being released. That’s a massive challenge,” a Red Cross spokesperson Christian Cardon told Sky News.

Delays in the return of hostages’ bodies have sparked furious political reaction in Israel and caused anguish among the families who expected loved ones to be returned on Monday.

Israel’s extreme-right hawkish minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, wrote on Telegram that “after opening the gates to hundreds of trucks, Hamas quickly returned to its well-known methods - lying, deceiving, and abusing families and bodies”.