Israel receives two more bodies from the Gaza Strip

The Red Cross transferred two coffins to Israeli forces in Gaza early on Sunday, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

The chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces led a military ceremony as the remains arrived in the Jewish state, after which the bodies went to the National Center of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv to be identified.

IDF representatives informed the family of slain hostage Ronen Tommy Engel that one of the bodies was his, the military said later on Sunday morning.

Engel, 54 years old at the time of his death, was killed by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught when he went out to protect his family as terrorists invaded his hometown of Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Engel leaves behind a wife, three children and a brother. His wife Karina and two daughters, Mika and Yuval, were also abducted, and were returned as part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas in November 2023.

The identification procedure for the second body is “ongoing at this time, and the IDF is in contact with all the families,” the army added.

The PMO announced that it had updated all of the families of hostages, adding that “our hearts are with them in this difficult hour.”

“The effort to return our hostages is ongoing and will not cease until the last hostage is returned,” it said.

Some 6,000 terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan civilians, infiltrated the Jewish state’s southern border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251.

The latest truce deal with Hamas saw Hamas free the remaining 20 living hostages last week in exchange for a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the release from jail of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, Hamas was required to return all 28 hostage bodies it held on Oct. 13. So far, it has transferred to Israel only 12.

© JNS