Israel has received via the Red Cross in Gaza two coffins which the Palestinian armed group Hamas says contain the bodies of deceased hostages, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.Israeli forces will now transfer the bodies to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.Hamas’s armed wing announced earlier that it had recovered the bodies of Israeli hostages Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch.On Tuesday, the Israeli government accused Hamas of violating the Gaza ceasefire deal after the group handed over a coffin containing human remains that did not belong to one of the 13 deceased Israeli and foreign hostages still in Gaza.It said forensic tests showed they belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, a hostage whose body had been recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza in late 2023.The Israeli military also released footage filmed by a drone that showed Hamas members removing a body bag containing the remains from a building in Gaza City, reburying it, and then staging the discovery in front of Red Cross staff.The Red Cross said its staff were unaware that the body bag had been moved before their arrival and that the staged recovery was “unacceptable”.Hamas rejected what it called the “baseless allegations” and accused Israel of “seeking to fabricate false pretexts in preparation for taking new aggressive steps”.Hours later, the Israeli government accused Hamas of another ceasefire violation, saying the group’s fighters had killed an Israeli soldier in an attack in an area of southern Gaza.Hamas claimed it was not involved in the incident in the Rafah area, but Israel’s prime minister ordered a wave of air strikes across Gaza on Tuesday night in response. The Israeli military said it attacked “dozens of terror targets and terrorists”.Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 104 Palestinians were killed, including 46 children and 20 women, making it the deadliest day si …
