Israel says remains returned by Hamas include person who was not a hostage

sion restricts Gaza financial assistance, expression that islamic resistance movement is delaying the return of hostage bodies.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas the previous day as part of the ceasefire deal is not that of one of the hostages who was held in Gaza, adding to tensions over a fragile ceasefire in the two-year war.

Four bodies were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday to ease pressure on the fragile ceasefire, following the first four on Monday — when the last 20 living hostages were released. In all, Israel was awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 deceased hostages.

The military said that "following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded earlier Wednesday that Hamas fulfil the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of the hostages' bodies.

"We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one," he said.

The U.S.-proposed ceasefire plan had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired on Monday. But under the deal, if that didn't happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to return them as soon as possible.

Israeli officials said they had decided to restrict aid at the southern Rafah crossing that borders Egypt, allowing only half the agreed number of aid trucks into Gaza starting Wednesday, because Hamas had violated the ceasefire deal by failing to turn over bodies of hostages.

This is not the first time Hamas has returned a wrong body to Israel. Earlier this year during a previous ceasefire, the group said it handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons.

Israelis endured another moment of agony when testing showed that one of the bodies returned was identified as a Palestinian woman.

Bibas's body was returned a day later and positively identified.

Hazem Kassem, a spokesperson for Hamas, said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday that the group was working to return the bodies of the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.

He accused Israel of violating the deal with shootings Tuesday in eastern Gaza City and the territory's southern city of Rafah.

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Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday the military is operating along the deployment lines laid out in the deal and warned that anyone approaching the deployment line will be targeted — as had happened on Tuesday with several militants.

Two hostages whose bodies were released from Gaza were to be buried on Wednesday. The family invited the public to gather along the road Wednesday afternoon to accompany the body of one hostage as it was taken from a forensics institute to a cemetery north of Tel Aviv.

On Monday, Israelis celebrated the return of the last 20 living hostages in Gaza, and Palestinians rejoiced at Israel's release of some 2,000 prisoners and detainees as part of the first phase of the ceasefire.

Hamas and the Red Cross have said that recovering the remains of dead hostages was a challenge because of the vast destruction of Gaza, and Hamas told mediators that some remains are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.

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By Monday night, Hamas had released four bodies, and four more followed late on Tuesday.

Of that second group of four bodies, three were identified — Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levi.

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