The bodies of 13 deceased hostages are believed to still be in Gaza.
U.S. officials -- including Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner -- traveled to Israel this week for high-level meetings, discussing the next steps in the delicate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire deal by withholding the bodies of the remaining 13 deceased hostages thought to have died during or after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas has said the return of the remaining bodies "may take some time" due to the destruction.
Forty-five bodies of Palestinians who were held by Israel for two years were returned to Gaza by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
The bodies were handed over to the Gaza Ministry of Health at Nasser Medical Complex.
The Red Cross said they will provide names of the bodies at a later time, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
-ABC News' Sami Zyara
Israeli officials are in conversation with the mediators and the International Committee of the Red Cross about the return of the rest of the deceased hostages, a senior Israeli official told ABC News on Tuesday.
“The issue is also being addressed with other international parties and continues in our actions (the negotiating team) with the mediators, even at these very hours,” Israeli government liaison to hostage families Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch said in a statement. “I am in constant contact with our representatives in the talks and have been updated on the details, the issue is at the center of the agenda,” Hirsch said in the statement.
The bodies of four deceased hostages were returned to Israel on Monday; according to the terms of the first phase of the ceasefire deal, the bodies of all 28 deceased hostages were supposed to be returned to Israel.
Hostage families sent a letter to U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff urging him to “pull out every stop and leave no stone unturned in demanding that Hamas fulfill their end of the agreement and bring all the remaining hostages home.”
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Anna Burd
The International Committee of the Red Cross has provided an updated number of Palestinians who were released from Israel on Monday as part of the phase one ceasefire deal.
A total of 1,968 Palestinians were released: that includes 250 Palestinian prisoners, as well as 1,808 Palestinian detainees who were arrested after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel but were not involved in the Oct. 7 attack, the ICRC said.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Iranian officials on Tuesday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of "repeating false claims" about the goals of Tehran’s nuclear program, which was struck in June by Israel with the help of the United States.
Trump on Monday touted those strikes, telling Israeli lawmakers in Jerusalem that "many of Iran's top terrorists, including nuclear scientists and commanders, have been extinguished from this earth." He said that the attack "stopped the number one state sponsor of terror from obtaining the world's most dangerous weapons."
The Iranian Foreign Ministry in a statement said Tehran condemned those statements. The ministry described Trump’s statement as an effort "to justify the joint crimes" by Israel and the United States.
"Boasting about and admitting to such crimes only increases the burden of responsibility on the US and reveals the depth of hostility among American policymakers toward the great people of Iran," the ministry said in its statement, which was posted on social media.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday thanked Trump for withdrawing from a former nuclear deal with Iran. He also thanked Trump for U.S. help with Israel's attack on Iran.
"Iran's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program with your enormous help, Mr. President, rolled back," Netanyahu said during his address at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
Trump on Monday also called for Iran to come to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Iran on Tuesday said those statements, in which Trump called for dialogue in the region, were "contradictory" to U.S. actions in the region.
-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian and Kevin Shalvey
