Hamas' armed wing said on Tuesday that it had found the body of an Israeli soldier held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza and would hand him over at 8 p.m., Reuters reports.
Hamas said the body was found in Shejaya, an eastern suburb of Gaza City in an area still occupied by Israeli forces, after Israel granted access to the site to Hamas and the International Committee of the Red Cross teams.
Under a ceasefire agreement that took effect on October 10, Hamas released all 20 alive hostages held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners of war held in Israel. Hamas has also promised to hand over the remains of deceased hostages, but says the military devastation in Gaza has made it difficult to recover the bodies. Israel accuses Hamas of delay.
Hamas has returned 20 of the 28 bodies of hostages buried in Gaza. In return, Israel handed over 270 bodies of Palestinians it had killed since the war began in October 2023, Gaza health officials said.
According to Israeli figures, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel's retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.
The US-brokered ceasefire has largely held despite repeated incidents of violence. Palestinian health officials say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes since the ceasefire went into effect, with nearly half of them killed in just one day last week when Israel retaliated against militants targeting its troops.
Israel says three of its soldiers were killed and that it has attacked dozens of militants it says approached lines behind which Israeli forces withdrew under the ceasefire.
Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza health officials said Israeli fire had killed a man in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed a "terrorist" who had crossed into areas the army continues to occupy and posed an imminent threat.