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Hostages and Missing Families Forum<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Israeli military says it has identified a body handed over from Gaza as that of Israeli-Argentinian Lior Rudaeff.<\/p>\n The 61-year-old was killed while attempting to defend Nir Yitzhak kibbutz during the Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and his body was taken to Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group, the military said.<\/p>\n PIJ said the body was found on Friday in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. <\/p>\n Hamas has now returned all 20 living hostages and 23 out of 28 deceased hostages under the first phase of a ceasefire deal that started on 10 October. Four of the five dead hostages still in Gaza are Israelis and one is Thai.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Israel has criticised Hamas for not yet returning all the bodies. Hamas says it is hard to find them under rubble.<\/p>\n PIJ is an armed group allied with Hamas. It took part in the 7 October attack and previously held some Israeli hostages. <\/p>\n The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, welcomed the return.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n During the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners in its jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza. <\/p>\n Israel has also handed over the bodies of 285 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 19 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas, along with those of three foreign hostages – one of them Thai, one Nepalese and one Tanzanian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The parties also agreed to an increase of aid to the Gaza Strip, a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a halt to fighting, although violence has flared up as both sides accused one another of breaching the deal.<\/p>\n Israel launched air strikes after accusing Hamas fighters of killing two of its soldiers on 19 October <\/a>and of killing another soldier on 28 October<\/a>. Hamas said it was unaware of clashes in the area of the first incident and had no connection to the second attack.<\/p>\n Israeli military actions have killed at least 241 people since the start of the ceasefire, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.<\/p>\n The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage. All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were abducted in the attack.<\/p>\n At least 68,875 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, the health ministry reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/bbcdotcom\/web\/20251105-121702-1a3e907763-web-2.33.1-3\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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MOHAMMED SABER\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n