Hamas has handed over the remains of two more Israeli hostages

The Israeli military issued a statement on Tuesday (October 21) evening, saying that the International Committee of the Red Cross received two coffins containing the remains of Israeli hostages from Hamas in the Gaza Strip on the same day and then handed them over to the Israeli military.

Previously, Hamas also announced that it would hand over the bodies of the two hostages to the Israeli side later that day, but did not disclose the identities of the deceased hostages.

According to the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, Hamas released a total of 20 Israeli hostages in two batches last Monday (the 13th), while Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and successively handed over the bodies of over a hundred Palestinian detainees. According to the Israeli side, Hamas handed over a total of 16 bodies to the Israeli side, but one of the deceased was not an Israeli hostage.

Israel has indefinitely postponed the opening of the Rafah border crossing, which is crucial for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, on the grounds that Hamas failed to hand over the remains of all hostages on time. Hamas said that searching for the bodies buried under the debris would take time and also face difficulties such as a lack of heavy equipment.

Us Vice President Vance visited Israel on Tuesday. When talking about the transfer of the hostages' bodies at a press conference held in Tel Aviv, he said, "This is very difficult and cannot be accomplished overnight." He said that some of the hostages' remains were buried under the debris and some were even unaccounted for, so "it will take time".

Vance also said that he was "confident" that the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip would continue and that the United States "would not send ground troops into Gaza", but would be responsible for "some useful coordination work".