Two more sets of remains belonging to deceased Israeli hostages who were held by Hamas in Gaza were returned to Israel on Thursday, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said.
The transfer came after a previous delay by Hamas in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire and ordering “powerful strikes” on Gaza earlier this week.
The flare-up in violence had sparked fears the U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel and Hamas could collapse, but on Tuesday, Israel said the ceasefire was back on.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said a military ceremony would be held when the hostage remains were received in Israel. They would then be transferred to Israel’s Health Ministry National Center of Forensic Medicine for identification.
So far, the bodies of 15 Israeli hostages have been returned to Israel since the start of the peace deal. If the two additional sets of remains are confirmed to belong to hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, it will leave 11 remaining in Gaza.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas released all living Israeli hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees. Israel pulled back its troops to a designated line within Gaza, halted its military offensive and increased aid into the territory.
Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all 28 deceased hostages, but has since said it is unable to locate or retrieve some of the remains due to the destruction caused by the war in Gaza.
Israel said the strikes in Gaza this week were in retaliation for the shooting and killing of one of its soldiers in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. Hamas said its fighters had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah.”
Netanyahu’s order for the strikes also came after Hamas returned a set of remains that Israel said belonged to a hostage recovered earlier in the war.
More than 100 Palestinians were killed in the strikes, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run ministry of health.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony for military commanders in southern Israel Thursday, Netanyahu warned, “If Hamas continues to blatantly violate the ceasefire, it will experience powerful strikes, as it did the day before yesterday and yesterday.”
He said Israel would “act as needed” to remove “immediate danger” to its forces.
“At the end of the day, Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized. If foreign forces do this, all the better. And if they don’t, we will do it.”