Israel Identifies Remains of Hostage Eliyahu Margalit Returned by Hamas
TEL AVIV - The israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Saturday the identification of the remains of Eliyahu Margalit, a 75-year-old Israeli citizen who was kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The body was initially handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross on Friday and later returned to the IDF for examination at the Legal Medical Institute in Tel aviv,before being released to his family.
Margalit was abducted from the stables of kibbutz Nir Oz, a farming community near the Gaza border, during the Hamas incursion that left 1,221 Israelis dead, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count.
The return of MargalitS remains is part of a US-brokered ceasefire agreement, under which Hamas has committed to returning the bodies of all hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. hamas stated Friday that the process “may take some time,” citing difficulties in locating and extracting bodies from the ruins of the territory, which has been devastated by conflict. The parties agreed to a ceasefire on October 10, following the release of the last 20 living hostages and those killed last Monday.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza has resulted in 67,967 Palestinian deaths, also largely civilians, according to data from the Hamas-led Health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
