[IsraelTimes] The fourth body returned by Hamas to Israel last night belongs to a West Bank Palestinian man who had reportedly been used by the Israeli military as a human shield in the Gaza Strip.
Officially, Israel has said that the body returned to Israel did not belong to any hostage.
A source cited by Al Jazeera claimed that Hamas had returned the body of an ostensible Israeli soldier who was captured in northern Gaza’s Jabalia in May 2024.
At the time, the military swiftly denied Hamas’s claim that it had captured a soldier in Jabalia, saying: “The IDF clarifies that there is no incident of a soldier’s kidnapping.”
The terror group had aired a video showing a bloodied person being dragged along the ground in a tunnel, and published images of military gear and submachine guns, which are not commonly used by the Israeli military. Hamas later also published a picture of the man’s face, without naming him.
Palestinian media at the time identified the man as Khalil Dawas, a Palestinian from the West Bank’s Aqabat Jabr camp, near Jericho. The reports said Dawas had been detained by Israel in the past.
The Kan public broadcaster reports, without citing any sources, that the man whose body was returned “operated alongside security forces in searches of underground tunnels” and was “killed by Hamas terrorists a year and a half ago.”
Amid the war, there has been a commonplace — but officially prohibited — practice of soldiers sending detained Palestinians to search buildings and tunnels before troops enter, endangering their lives.
The IDF says it strictly prohibits using civilians as shields, and has opened investigations into several such cases.
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