Israel receives body from Gaza after Netanyahu says soldier killed in 2014 to be returned

Israel received the body of a hostage after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected to return the remains of a soldier killed in 2014.

The Israeli army said that the body had been transferred for official identification.

Earlier, Netanyahu said that Israel is scheduled to receive the body of Hadar Goldin, a soldier who was killed in a Hamas ambush during a previous conflict in 2014 and whose body has been held in Gaza since then.

The military wing of Hamas also said on Sunday that it would hand over the body of Hadar Goldin.

If it is confirmed that the body belongs to Lieutenant Goldin, Hamas will return all 20 living hostages and 24 of the 28 dead hostages under the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

Netanyahu said that Lieutenant Goldin’s family will now be able to bury him in the Jewish manner, and confirmed his intention to return the bodies of all deceased hostages.

“We have brought back 250 people so far. We will bring them all back,” he said.

Lt. Goldin’s family said on Saturday that “an entire nation is waiting for Hadar to return to us.”

The family said in a statement: “We are awaiting official confirmation that Hadar has returned to Israel. We will never abandon anyone in this country. We ask everyone to remain calm. Until things are over, it is not over yet.”

Lt. Goldin, of Kfar Saba, is the only deceased hostage whose remains were held in Gaza before the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the latest war.

He was killed in action on August 1, 2014, shortly after the start of a ceasefire in that year’s war between Israel and Hamas. He was among a group of Israeli soldiers who were patrolling an agricultural area near Rafah in southern Gaza when they were attacked by a group of Hamas fighters.

The Israeli army determined that Lieutenant Goldin was killed along with two other soldiers in an exchange of fire, and then Hamas fighters dragged his body into an underground tunnel.

The Israeli army unleashed massive firepower to try to prevent Hamas from taking Lieutenant Goldin hostage. Dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed in the bombing of Rafah, which continued for four days, including after the death of Lieutenant Goldin was announced.

The Israeli army said on Saturday that it had identified a body delivered from Gaza as one Israeli-Argentine Lior Rudaev.

Also on Saturday, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza. The Israeli army said that two people crossed the yellow line that represents the Israeli line of control in Gaza and pose an “immediate threat.”

Israeli military operations have killed at least 241 people since the ceasefire began, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, whose figures the United Nations considers reliable.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the October 7, 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage.

The Health Ministry reported that at least 69,169 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then.