Hostage body handed over by Hamas identified as soldier

Middle East

Hostage body handed over by Hamas identified as soldier

The Islamist Hamas has so far handed over 21 dead hostages to Israel as part of the Gaza agreement. Accordingly, the remains of seven victims are still missing.

The body handed over to Israel by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas on Tuesday evening has been identified as that of a soldier who was killed and kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army announced early in the morning on the Telegram platform that it was Itay Chen. The 19-year-old American-Israeli soldier was reportedly killed in the massacre by Hamas and other Islamist extremists in Israel on October 7, 2023 while fighting the terrorists. His body was then taken to the Gaza Strip.

Chen was the last hostage remaining in the Gaza Strip with dual Israeli-American citizenship. With the handover of his body, there are now seven dead hostages in Gaza, including a German-Israeli and two foreigners kidnapped from Israel. On October 13, Hamas released all remaining hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as part of the US-driven peace plan.

Hamas handed over the abductee’s remains to employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday evening, after which they were taken to Israel for identification. However, contrary to what was agreed as part of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, the terrorist organization is only slowly handing over the bodies. She justifies this by saying that it is difficult for her to find the dead because they are buried under the rubble of bombed buildings and tunnels. Israel calls this a Hamas lie.

The Israeli army assumes that all of the killed hostages can be found. In the past, Hamas had handed over bodies that later turned out not to be hostages. Hamas is committed to fulfilling its part of the agreement and making the necessary efforts to return all hostages to their families and provide a dignified burial, the army stressed.