Four bodies were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday to ease pressure on the ceasefire, following an earlier four on Monday — hours after the last 20 living hostages were released. In all, Israel has been awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.
Israel, which released around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Monday, is also handing over bodies of Palestinians under the deal, a step awaited by many families in Gaza whose relatives went missing during the war.
The 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 earlier Wednesday that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal 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.
The U.S.-proposed 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.
