Israeli police said Tuesday they had received the presumed remains of one of the last two deceased hostages in the Gaza Strip, which will be identified at the country’s forensic institute.

Under the first phase of the fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, militants were due to return all 48 hostages they held captive, 20 of whom were still alive.

All but the bodies of two hostages — Israeli Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak — have since been handed over, but Israel has accused the Palestinian fighters of dragging their feet on returning remains.

Hamas has said the process of retrieving the bodies has been slow because the bodies have been under the vast piles of rubble left by two years of devastating war.

Israeli police escorted what they described as “the coffin of the fallen hostage to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine” in a brief statement.

According to AFP news agency, the convoy was carrying the remains arriving at the forensic institute in Tel Aviv.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office said earlier that Israel had received the “findings” through the Red Cross inside the Gaza Strip.

It did not specify whether what was discovered were the remains of either Gvili or Rinthalak, but said authorities were in “continuous contact” with their families.

Hamas had not confirmed by Tuesday late afternoon local time that it had handed the remains of a hostage over to Israel as it had done so previously.

‘Number of bodies found’

Operatives took 251 people hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 70,112 people, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

The ministry says since the ceasefire came into effect, 356 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel’s military has reported three soldiers killed during the same period.

A Hamas official told AFP a team from the group’s armed wing and that of Islamic Jihad — accompanied by the Red Cross — had been conducting search operations for several days in multiple areas, particularly in Jabalia and Beit Lahia in the north of the territory.

“A number of bodies were found under the rubble and are being examined,” the official said, adding that search operations were ongoing and there was “no confirmation that any of these bodies found belong to an Israeli prisoner”.

“The mediators were informed that if the two bodies are found, they will be handed over immediately to the Israeli side through the established mechanism,” the official added, without giving further details.

Second phase

The ceasefire which came into effect on October 10 remains fragile, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the terms, while the Gaza Strip remains in a deep humanitarian crisis.

Under the first phase of the deal, Palestinian fighters have handed over the last 20 living captives , and so far the remains of 26 out of 28 deceased ones.

In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.

Qatar, which alongside the United States and Egypt secured the long-elusive truce, said Tuesday it hoped Israel and Hamas could be brought to a new phase of negotiations for a peace deal.

“We think that we should be pushing the parties to stage two very, very soon,” Qatar foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.

The spokesman added that the return of the remains should not be a hindrance to reaching phase two.