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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas says it returned 2 more bodies of hostages; remains taken to forensic lab for ID, one identified as hostage |
| 2025-10-19 |
| [IsraelTimes] Caskets handed to IDF via Red Cross and brought from Gaza to Tel Aviv’s Abu Kabir institute; if confirmed to be abductees, number of bodies still in Strip would drop to 16 The Hamas terror group transferred to Israel two caskets Saturday night which it said contained the remains of two dead hostages held in Gaza, with the bodies handed to the Red Cross and then to the Israel Defense Forces and taken to a forensic institute for identification, according to Israeli authorities and the Palestinian terror group’s military wing. If the bodies are confirmed to belong to hostages, it would mean that the number of bodies of dead captives still held in the Strip would go down from 18 to 16, after 28 were there at the start of the current ceasefire. Hamas said that it had “retrieved” the bodies Saturday, and did not provide their identities. The caskets were handed to Red Cross staff at a handover site in southern Gaza, and then handed to IDF troops who inspected them, draped them in Israeli flags and held a short ceremony led by a military rabbi. The army then transported the bodies out of the Gaza Strip and handed them to the Israel Police, which escorted them to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv for identification, a process which officials have said may take up to two days. The current hostage deal required Hamas to release the remaining 20 living hostages, and the deceased hostages accessible to it, within 72 hours of Israel’s October 10 withdrawal to the so-called Yellow Line inside Gaza. Hamas released the living hostages in time and before Saturday night had released 10 of the last 28 dead hostages. In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners and detainees, including 250 terror convicts serving life terms, plus the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every one dead hostage returned. Hamas has said it would require additional machinery to locate the remaining deceased hostages. Israel has accused Hamas of lying, saying it can return almost all of the bodies. So Hamas is playing nasty little mind games? Quelle surprise! Hamas said Saturday that the closure of the Rafah crossing was causing significant delays in the handover of hostages’ remains, alleging that the continued closure “blocks the entry of specialized equipment needed to search for those missing under the rubble and prevents forensic teams and tools required to identify bodies”, leading to “significant delays in the retrieval and transfer of remains.”Meanwhile, Hamas’s health ministry said Israel had handed over the remains of 15 slain Gazans on Saturday, bringing to 135 the total number of bodies returned to the Strip under the current ceasefire, which was brokered by US President Donald Trump. Israel did not immediately confirm returning the Gazans’ remains. Ronen Engel identified as one of the bodies returned overnight by Hamas [IsraelTimes] One of the bodies returned last night by Hamas is slain hostage Ronen Engel, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and Kibbutz Nir Oz announce. The Families Forum says it “embraces the Engel family,” calling the return “a form of relief for a family living in agonizing uncertainty and doubt for over two years.” The Prime Minister’s Office and the IDF confirm the identification of Engel, and say that the process of identifying the other body returned overnight is still ongoing. On October 7, 2023, Engel was killed by Hamas in Nir Oz while his wife Karina and their daughters Mika and Yuval were kidnapped. The following month, Karina, Mika and Yuval were freed from Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal. In December of that year, the IDF confirmed that Ronen had been killed and his body was held hostage. It later emerged that Ronen had been slain in the kibbutz on October 7 and his remains taken captive. In addition to his wife and two daughters, Ronen is survived by his son, Tom, who was not home that weekend, and his brother, Danny. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Engel moved with his family to Nir Oz in 2010, according to a statement shared this morning by the Families Forum. He was a photographer, a volunteer medic at the Magen David Adom ambulance service, a motorcyclist who enjoyed exploring Israel’s nature, and an artist who used discarded scrap iron as his raw material. Related: Ronen Engel 12/02/2023 Announcements: |
| Posted by:trailing wife |