Palestinian militants hand over body of another Gaza hostage

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad handed over the body of a deceased hostage on Friday as part of the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that a coffin carrying the remains of a hostage has been handed over to Israeli security forces in Gaza via the Red Cross and will be transported into Israel for identification.

Islamic Jihad is an armed group that is allied with Hamas and which also took hostages during the October 7, 2023 attack that precipitated the Gaza war. It said the hostage's body was located in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Under the October ceasefire deal Hamas turned over all 20 living hostages still held in Gaza since the group's 2023 attack on Israel, in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held in Israel.

The ceasefire agreement also included the return of remains of 28 deceased hostages in exchange for remains of 360 militants. So far, 22 hostage bodies have been returned in exchange for 285 bodies of Palestinians, though not all have been identified according to Gaza's health authorities.

Hamas-led militants seized 251 hostages in the 2023 attack and killed another 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 69,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, health officials in Gaza say.

The tenuous ceasefire has calmed most but not all fighting, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the ruins of their homes in Gaza. Israel has withdrawn troops from positions in cities and more aid has been allowed in.

(Reporting by Yomna Ehab, Enas Alashray and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Philippa Fletcher and Diane Craft)