Israel receives ‘findings’ from Red Cross after Hamas handover; ID unclear

Israel received unspecified “findings” potentially belonging to a hostage, handed over by Hamas through the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday, as Israel awaits the return of the bodies of the final two captives.
It is unclear as of yet who the findings belong to. A Hamas official told Reuters earlier that the terror group was handing over the body of one of the two remaining hostages to the Red Cross; however, the terror group did not officially announce that it intended to return any hostages on Tuesday, as it has previously done when it returned remains.
A senior Red Cross official told The Times of Israel that the findings it handed over to the IDF included “small remains, pieces” of a body.
After receiving them from the Red Cross, the Israel Defense Forces inspected the remains and held a short ceremony led by a military rabbi. The police then escorted them to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv for identification.
The Health Ministry confirmed the remains has arrived in Abu Kabir and said they will undergo identification and an investigation into the cause and circumstances of death.
Palestinian media said they were found in Gaza’s northern town of Beit Lahiya.
Two bodies of deceased hostages are held in the Gaza Strip, belonging to Master Sgt. Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak. They were among the 251 hostages taken on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The bodies of 26 deceased hostages have been returned gradually, without any assurances or fixed timeline, over the course of the past seven weeks, as part of the US-brokered ceasefire that halted the war.
The first phase of the deal, delineated in the October 9 ceasefire agreement, includes the return of all hostages, living and deceased. The rest of the US-backed plan, which has not been formally agreed on, would see Israeli troops withdraw further from Gaza as Hamas disarms and hands control over to a transitional governing body and multinational peacekeeping force.
Qatar, which has mediated talks between Israel and Hamas, said Tuesday that it hopes the two sides can be brought to a new phase of negotiations for a peace deal in Gaza.
“We think that we should be pushing the parties to stage two very, very soon,” Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari says, adding that the talks will include issues such as the Hamas terrorists still in tunnels in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.
IDF says it killed 3 Palestinians who approached troops
Meanwhile, the IDF said that three Palestinian terror operatives who approached troops in the Gaza Strip were killed in airstrikes.
In one incident in the Khan Younis area, the army said two operatives crossed the Yellow Line — demarcating the military’s withdrawal — and were identified by troops of the Kfir Brigade.
The operatives approached the troops “in a way that posed an immediate threat,” the military said, adding that the soldiers directed a drone strike, which “eliminated the two terrorists.”
In a separate incident in northern Gaza, the IDF said reservists of the Carmeli Brigade identified an operative crossing the line and approaching the forces.
The Israeli Air Force, with information provided by the ground troops, struck and “eliminated the terrorist,” the IDF added.
According to hospitals in the Strip, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire Tuesday.
An Israeli drone strike killed a videographer in the south, said officials at Nasser Hospital, which received the body.
Momahed Wadi was killed in Khan Younis, the hospital said. Wadi owned a drone photography company that once specialized in filming occasions like weddings. More recently, it posted footage of Gaza’s destruction.
Another Palestinian was killed by IDF gunfire in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the Al-Awda Hospital in the nearby camp of Nuseirat.
Bureij lies mostly on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 70,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 476. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
Noam Lehmann contributed to this report.