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Hamas said it would hand over a hostage body on Wednesday, after Israeli forensic services concluded that remains returned a day earlier were not from one of two final deceased hostages.
The handover of the last two hostages’ bodies in Gaza would complete a key condition of the initial part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war.
Hamas said it would hand over the body at 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET).
The armed wing of the Hamas-allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it had conducted a search in northern Gaza, along with a team from the Red Cross.
The group later said it found a body, but it did not say which of the two remaining deceased hostages it believed it to be.
The two are Israeli police officer Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak, both kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered two years of devastating war in Gaza.
The search came soon after Israel’s National Center for Forensic Medicine concluded that remains handed over by Hamas on Tuesday were not those of the final two hostages in Gaza, the office of Israel’s prime minister said.
Israeli forces said they sent the remains they described as “findings” for forensic testing.
“The findings brought yesterday for examination from the Gaza Strip are not linked to any of the deceased hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Hamas had handed over remains to the Geneva-based Red Cross, which has acted as an intermediary between Gaza militant groups and Israel throughout the war.
Israel has been releasing 15 Palestinian bodies for the remains of each hostage as part of the ceasefire agreement. The Gaza Health Ministry said the total number of remains received so far is 330.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s main gateway is expected to open in the next few days, Israel said on Wednesday, allowing thousands of Palestinians who are in need of medical care to leave the war-ravaged enclave through Egypt.
COGAT, the Israeli military arm that oversees humanitarian matters, said the opening of the Rafah crossing will be co-ordinated with Egypt, under the supervision of the European Union mission, similar to a mechanism employed during a previous Gaza ceasefire agreed in January 2025.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported over the weekend that the number of people confirmed killed in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip has passed the 70,000 mark, most of them civilians.
