Israel received from the Red Cross on Friday the remains of one of the last six captives held by Palestinian operatives in the Gaza Strip, according to the prime minister's office, with the body since identified as Israeli-Argentinian captive Lior Rudaeff.
The Israeli army stated on Saturday that Rudaeff, 61, was killed in the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz while trying to protect his community with four other residents on October 7, 2023 during the Hamas cross-border attack on Israel.
The volunteer ambulance driver's body was taken to the Palestinian territory that day, and held there until Friday when his remains were returned under the terms of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect last month.
"Following the completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine... [Israeli military] representatives informed the family of Lior Rudaeff that he had been returned for burial," the Israeli military said.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group, welcomed the return.
"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."
The Israeli military earlier confirmed that a coffin containing the deceased captive's body had "crossed the border into the State of Israel" after being delivered by the Red Cross to the army and the Shin Bet security agency in Gaza.
Earlier on Friday, Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, had said that it and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad would "hand over the body of one of the occupation's captives, which was found today in the city of Khan Younis".
The handover took place under the terms of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect on 10 October.
At the start of the truce, Hamas released all 20 surviving captives seized during its 7 October 2023 attack in southern Israel.
In exchange, Israel freed thousands of Palestinian detainees in its custody.
Of the 28 deceased captives that Hamas agreed to hand over under the deal, it has so far returned 22 - 19 Israelis, one Thai, one Nepali and one Tanzanian - excluding the latest body.
The last six deceased captives include five seized on October 7 - four Israelis and one Thai - as well as the remains of a soldier who died in combat in 2014 during a previous war in Gaza.
Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the bodies of deceased captives, while the Palestinian group says the process is slow because many are buried beneath Gaza's rubble.