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The Israeli military says it has identified a body handed over from Gaza as that of Israeli-Argentinian Lior Rudaeff.<\/p>\n
The 61-year-old was killed while attempting to defend Nir Yitzhak kibbutz during the Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and his body was taken to Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group, the military said.<\/p>\n
PIJ said the body was found on Friday in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.<\/p>\n
Hamas has now returned all 20 living hostages and 23 out of 28 deceased hostages under the first phase of a ceasefire deal that started on 10 October. Four of the five dead hostages still in Gaza are Israelis and one is Thai.<\/p>\n
Israel has criticised Hamas for not yet returning all the bodies. Hamas says it is hard to find them under rubble.<\/p>\n
PIJ is an armed group allied with Hamas. It took part in the 7 October attack and previously held some Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, welcomed the return.<\/p>\n
“Lior’s return provides some measure of comfort to a family that has lived with agonising uncertainty and doubt for over two years,” it said in a statement. “We will not rest until the last hostage is brought home.”<\/p>\n
During the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.<\/p>\n
Israel has also handed over the bodies of 300 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 20 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas, along with those of three foreign hostages – one of them Thai, one Nepalese and one Tanzanian.<\/p>\n