Published On 8/11/2025
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Last update: 10:41 (Mecca time)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that the body that was delivered from Gaza yesterday was identified, after forensic examinations were completed.
The Diwan added that the body belonged to an Israeli prisoner, Lior Rudaev, and that his family had been notified.
For his part, the Israeli army spokesman explained that Rudayev was a reservist soldier who was killed in Kibbutz Beir Yitzhak on October 7, 2023.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent said that the Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades handed the Red Cross the body of an Israeli prisoner after it was found in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
Last Wednesday evening, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), handed over the body of an Israeli prisoner to the Red Cross, after it was found in the Shujaiya neighborhood (east of Gaza City), in a new step within the ongoing understandings between Hamas and the mediators.
Since the start of the ceasefire agreement on October 10, Hamas has released 20 prisoners alive and handed over the bodies of 21 out of 28, and 6 bodies remained inside the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli estimates.
Israel is conditioning the start of the second phase of negotiations on the receipt of the rest of the bodies, while Hamas asserts that this process requires a great deal of time and effort, given the massive destruction in Gaza that impedes access to burial sites, demanding that mediators provide equipment and technical personnel to retrieve the bodies from under the rubble.
The handover of the body yesterday, Friday, was the 22nd since the ceasefire last October 10, and the efforts of the mediators are still continuing to stabilize the calm and push negotiations towards implementing the rest of the terms of the agreement.