Hamas handed over four more bodies after Israel announced a reduction in aid to Gaza

Israel has announced that it will halve the number of humanitarian supply trucks entering the Gaza Strip and postpone the opening of the southern border crossing to punish Hamas for its slow return of the remains of dead hostages. The fragile ceasefire agreement brokered by US President Trump has suffered a blow. Hamas later handed over four more bodies to Israel.

According to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg, Israeli officials said on Tuesday (October 14) that Israel has decided to restrict humanitarian supply trucks from entering the Gaza Strip and postpone the plan to open the southern border crossing to Egypt because Hamas violated the ceasefire agreement by failing to hand over the remains of all the hostages who died after being captured.

Hours later, an official disclosed to Reuters that Hamas informed mediators that the four bodies would be handed over to Israel starting from 7 p.m. GMT on Tuesday (3 a.m. Singapore time on Wednesday).

The Israeli military later said that the Red Cross had received four coffins sent by Hamas and was handing over the bodies to the Israeli army.

Trump did not respond directly to Israel's announcement, but he mentioned on social media that Hamas was delaying the return of the hostages' bodies.

Trump wrote on Truth Social: "A heavy burden has been lifted, but the job is not yet done." The body of the deceased has not been returned as promised! The second stage begins now!"

On Tuesday afternoon, when asked whether Hamas was abiding by the agreement, Trump said, "We will investigate."

The United Nations confirmed that the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating the Palestinian territory policy sent a letter announcing that the amount of aid supplies entering the Gaza Strip will be halved as Hamas has not yet returned all the remains of the hostages. The return of the remains of all the deceased hostages is a key part of the first phase agreement of the Gaza ceasefire that came into effect last week.

According to the agreement, Hamas will release 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 28 hostages. Twenty surviving hostages have returned to Israel.

Hamas earlier returned the bodies of four hostages. The Israeli military said the identities of the four deceased have been confirmed, and one of them was a Nepalese student.