Israel has identified the hostage body returned by Hamas on Thursday as that of Meny Godard, who was 73 when he was killed in the 7 October attacks.

Red Cross vehicles collected his body hours after Hamas issued a joint statement with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad saying it had been located in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said forensic testing confirmed the body belonged to Godard, who was killed along with his wife, Ayelet, during Hamas’s raid on kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October 2023.

Hamas has now returned all 20 living hostages, and 25 out of 28 deceased hostages, under the first phase of the ceasefire deal – part of a US plan to end the Gaza war.

All the living Israeli hostages were released on 13 October in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

For each dead Israeli hostage returned, Israel has agreed to hand over the remains of 15 Palestinians. But with no DNA testing available in Gaza, it is hard to identify them.

Hamas seized 251 hostages when it launched the deadly attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, during which it killed 1,200 people.

More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory response, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, whose figures the UN considers reliable.

Of the three bodies still in Gaza, two are Israeli and one is Thai.

Israel has accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the recovery of the hostages’ bodies, but Hamas has said it is struggling to find them under rubble.

The slow progress has meant there has been no advance on the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan.

This includes plans for the governance of Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the disarmament of Hamas, and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.