Three of the four bodies of Israeli hostages in Gaza returned by Hamas late on Tuesday have been identified, their families said on Wednesday following forensic confirmation of their identities.
Israel's military said on Wednesday that one of the four bodies it received from Hamas does not match any of the hostages that were in the group's custody.
It added that the Palestinian group is required to make all efforts to return the bodies of all remaining hostages.
So far, Hamas has handed back eight bodies, seven of which have been identified.
The remains of 20 others remain in Gaza, and there is domestic pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tie aid to the fate of the bodies.
The families of former Gaza hostages Ouriel Baruch, Eitan Levy and Tamir Nimrodi, posted statements on social media after Israel's forensic research laboratory confirmed the identities.
"It is with immense sadness and pain that we announce the return of the body of our beloved Ouriel Baruch from the Gaza Strip, after two long years of prayer, hope, and faith," said the family of the Jerusalem resident who was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, at the Nova festival at the age of 35.
Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levy's relatives also announced the return of their remains to Israel.
"It is with a broken heart and unbearable grief that we announce that the body of Tamir, my eldest and beloved son, was brought back from Gaza (yesterday)", Tamir's father Alon Nimrodi wrote on Facebook.
Tamir was a soldier captured at age 18 from a military base on the border with Gaza.
Eitan Levy's family announced the return of the remains of the 53-year-old cab driver who was killed after dropping off a friend at Kibbutz Beeri on the morning of the Hamas attack. His remains were taken into Gaza the same day.
The bodies were returned after Israel announced it would cut in half the number of humanitarian aid trucks allowed into Gaza in a move to punish Hamas for what Israel called the militant group's violation of its agreement to transfer remains under the ceasefire deal reached last week.
Hamas reasserting control in Gaza
Meanwhile, re-emergent Hamas fighters demonstrated they were reasserting control in Gaza by deploying hundreds of security forces in the streets and executing several people they accused of collaborating with Israel.
The outlook for Trump's peace plan darkened further when the president threatened Hamas with military strikes unless the militant group disarmed.
"If they don't disarm, we will disarm them. And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently," Trump said at the White House, one day after he spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem.
Aid deliveries
It was not immediately clear if the handing over of bodies was sufficient for Israel to restore a full complement of aid deliveries.
The country's public broadcaster KAN reported on Wednesday that Israel will allow Gaza's Rafah crossing to reopen for humanitarian aid to enter from Egypt into the Palestinian territory.
"Six hundred trucks of humanitarian aid will be dispatched (Wednesday) to the Gaza Strip by the UN, approved international organisations, the private sector and donor countries," KAN said on its website without citing sources.
Buses carrying Palestinians released from Israeli prisons arrive outside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on Monday. Source: NurPhoto, Getty / Majdi Fathi
Israel's two-year assault has left much of the enclave in ruins, and Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from a famine that has afflicted more than half a million Palestinians, creating great need for an expected 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the ceasefire.
Hamas, which seized Gaza in a brief 2007 civil war, has swiftly reclaimed the streets of Gaza's urban areas following the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops last week.
In a video circulated late on Monday, Hamas fighters dragged seven men with their hands tied behind their backs into a Gaza City square, forced them to their knees and shot them from behind, as dozens of onlookers watched from nearby storefronts.
A Hamas source confirmed that the video was filmed on Monday and that Hamas fighters participated in the executions.
Trump has previously given his blessing to Hamas to reassert some control of Gaza, at least temporarily. Israeli officials have so far refrained from commenting publicly on the re-emergence of the group's fighters.
On Monday, Trump proclaimed the "historic dawn of a new Middle East" to Israel's parliament, as Israel and Hamas were exchanging the last 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
The ceasefire has stopped two years of devastating warfare in Gaza triggered by the October 7 attack in 2023, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's military has killed at least 67,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, with thousands more feared dead under the rubble. Gaza's civil defence service said 250 bodies had been recovered since the truce began.
— With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse.
