JERUSALEM — The remains of three people Hamas handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza do not belong to any hostages, Israel said Saturday, in the latest setback to the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The handover followed Israel’s return on Friday of the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza, which completed an exchange after militants turned over remains of two hostages earlier in the week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the remains of the three people did not belong to hostages. It was unclear who the remains belonged to.
Hamas’ armed wing said it had offered to hand over samples on Friday of unidentified bodies but Israel refused and asked for the remains for examination.
“We handed the bodies over to stop the claims of Israel,” the statement said. Health officials in Gaza have struggled to identify bodies without access to DNA kits.
Families and supporters rallied once again on Saturday night to call for the return of all hostages. While Yael Adar, mother of the late Tamir Adar, asserted to a rally in Tel Aviv that “the Hamas scum are mocking us,” Moran Harari, friend of the late Carmel Gat, urged Israel to have restraint during a rally in Jerusalem.
“This cursed war has taken so many lives of dear people on both sides of the fence. This time, we must not fall into it again,” Harari said.
Since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 17 hostages. Eleven remain in Gaza. Militants have released one or two bodies every few days. Israel has urged faster progress. Hamas has said the work is complicated by widespread devastation and Israeli military presence in some areas.
Israel has been releasing the unidentified remains of 15 Palestinians for the remains of each Israeli hostage. The number of Palestinian bodies returned by Israel since the ceasefire began now stands at 225. Only 75 have been identified by families, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
It is unclear if those returned were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that sparked the war, died in Israeli custody as detainees or were recovered from Gaza by troops during the war.
The fragile truce faced its biggest challenge earlier this week when Israel carried out strikes across Gaza that killed more than 100 people, following the killing of an Israeli soldier in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
