JERUSALEM — Israel awaited the return of the last hostage remains held by Palestinian armed group in Gaza, as the military said on Thursday that those of a Thai national had been identified after they were handed over.

 

Under the first phase of the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, militants were due to return all 48 hostages they held captive, 20 of whom were still alive.

 

All but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have since been handed over, though Israel has accused the Palestinian militants of dragging their feet on returning bodies.

 

Hamas has said the process of retrieving the remains has been slow because they have been buried under the vast piles of rubble left by two years of devastating war.

 

A few people milled around Tel Aviv's Hostages Square on Thursday morning, which became the focal point for weekly rallies throughout the war demanding the return of all the Gaza captives.

 

Posters bearing the faces of Gvili and Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai national whose remains were returned on Wednesday, were propped up alongside Israeli flags and yellow ribbons that have come to symbolise Israel's hostage ordeal.

 

"We feel joy in our hearts that one more hostage has returned, but at the same time profound sadness that one is still left," Orly, a pharmacist from Tel Aviv, told AFP.

 

Mirala Gal, a volunteer at the square, said "it's our obligation to make sure that they're all back home".

 

The Israeli military said on Thursday that the remains of Rinthalak had been identified after they were handed over by Hamas and their allies Islamic Jihad a day earlier.

 

He was killed on October 7, 2023 during Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel, and his body taken to the Gaza Strip, the military said.

 

Rinthalak was 43 years old at the time of his death and worked in agriculture. Israel officially confirmed his death in May 2024.

 

'Last to return'

 

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing those taken captive to Gaza, said the return of Rinthalak offered some long-awaited solace for his family.

 

"Amid their grief and the knowledge that their hearts will never fully heal, Sudthisak's return offers some comfort to a family that has endured unbearable uncertainty for over two years," the group said in a statement.

 

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli government "shares in the deep sorrow of the Rinthalak family, the Thai people and all of fallen hostages' families."

 

The last hostage body held in Gaza is Ran Gvili, an officer in Israel's Yasam elite police unit who was 24 at the time of Hamas's attack that triggered the war.

 

He fell in battle on that day and his body taken to Gaza.

 

"The first to leave, the last to return... We won't stop until you come back," his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on X, alongside a photo of her son.

 

Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 70,125 people, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the UN considers reliable.