Israel identifies latest returned body as Israeli-Argentinian hostage

Israel has identified the latest body returned from Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as Israeli-Argentinian hostage Lior Rudaeff, the Israeli army said Saturday.

Rudaeff, 61, was killed in the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz while trying to protect his community with four other residents on October 7, 2023 during the brutal Hamas cross-border attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

The volunteer ambulance driver’s body was taken to the Palestinian territory that day, and held there until Friday when his remains were returned under the terms of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect last month.

“Following the completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine… IDF representatives informed the family of Lior Rudaeff that he had been returned for burial,” the Israeli military said.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, welcomed the return.

“Lior’s return provides some measure of comfort to a family that has lived with agonising uncertainty and doubt for over two years,” it said in a statement. “We will not rest until the last hostage is brought home.”

At the start of the truce, Hamas released all 20 surviving hostages seized during its October 7, 2023 attack.

In exchange, Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in its custody.

Of the 28 deceased hostages that Hamas agreed to hand over under the deal, it has so far returned 23 — 20 Israelis, one Thai, one Nepali and one Tanzanian — including the latest body.

The last five deceased hostages include four seized on October 7, 2023 — three Israelis and one Thai — as well as the remains of a soldier who died in combat in 2014 during a previous war in Gaza.

Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the bodies of deceased hostages, while the Palestinian group says the process is slow because many are buried beneath Gaza’s bombed-out rubble.