Israel received the body from Gaza after Netanyahu said the soldier killed in 2014 would be returned

Israel received the body of a hostage after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected the remaining soldiers killed in 2014 to be returned.

The body has been formally identified, the Israeli military said.

Previously, Netanyahu said that Israel was due to receive the body of Hadar Goldin, a soldier who was killed in a previous conflict in 2014 and whose body has been held in Gaza since then.

Hamas’ armed wing also said on Sunday that it would hand over Hadar Goldin’s body.

If the body is proven to be Lt Goldin’s, Hamas will return all 20 hostages to 24 of the 28 dead hostages in a hostage standoff.

Netanyahu said Lt Goldin’s family would now give him a Jewish burial and reiterated his intention to return the bodies of all the hostages to all those who died.

“We’ve returned 250 so far. We’re going to send them all,” he said.

On Saturday Lt Goldin’s family said “a whole country is waiting for Hadar to be returned to us”.

“We are waiting for the official confirmation that has returned to Israel. We will not stop anyone in this country, we ask everyone to stay,” it will not end, “this is the first,” it said in a statement.

Lt Goldin, from Kfar Saba, was the only dead hostage held in Gaza before Israel-led Hamas, which sparked the latest war.

He was killed in combat on 1 August 2014, shortly after the start of a year-long ceasefire with Hamas. He was among a group of Israeli soldiers patrolling an agricultural area near Rafah in southern Gaza when they were attacked by a group of Hamas fighters.

The Israeli military has determined that Lt Golinin was killed along with two other soldiers in a firefight, and that his body was then taken to a thorn under Hamas.

The Israeli military opened up massive firepower to try to prevent Hamas from taking Lt Goldin hostage. Many Palestinian civilians were killed in the shelling of Rafah, which continued for four days, including those who were declared dead.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it identified a body delivered from Gaza as The Israeli-Argentinian lior rudaeff.

Also on Saturday, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza. The Israeli military said two people crossed the yellow line marking Israel’s line of control in Gaza and posed an “immediate threat”.

Israeli military actions have killed at least 241 people since the start of the ceasefire, according to the Hamas-Run Health Mismister, whose figures are seen by the UN as reliable.

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

At least 69,169 people have been killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza since then, the Ministry of Health reported.