The Red Cross announced on Friday evening that it had transferred three bodies from Gaza to Israel.
The bodies have been taken to the National Center for Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir for identification.
The announcement followed reports in Israeli media that Israel is preparing for the possibility that Hamas may transfer remains that are not definitively identified as belonging to Israeli hostages.
According to the IDF, some of the bodies could include the remains of hostages who have already been returned to Israel.
On Thursday, the bodies of hostages Sahar Baruch and Amiram Cooper were returned to Israel by Hamas.
The terrorist organization still holds the bodies of 11 hostages in the Gaza Strip.
Previously, Hamas claimed to have handed over the body of a hostage, but it turned out that the terrorist organization was lying and that it had returned additional remains of Ofir Sarfati, a hostage whose body was recovered and returned to Israel in November 2023.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, Hamas was required to return all hostages in its possession within 72 hours. The group released all 20 living hostages it held in time, but has stalled on the return of the deceased hostages.
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)