Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken with US President Joe Biden about the progress in negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, Netanyahu’s office said Sunday.

The Israeli military this week found and recovered the remains of Youssef Ziyadne, just days after his name appeared on a Hamas list of hostages to be released.

Hamza Ziyadne, 23, was abducted in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel alongside his siblings and father, whose body was also recovered this week.

The Israeli military said Friday it had identified the body of a hostage recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza as the son of Yosef Al-Ziyadnah, a hostage whose body was recovered earlier this week.

The protest comes on the same day that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire talks in Doha.View on euronews

Israel confirmed on Friday that the remains of a hostage found killed in Gaza were of Hamza Ziyadne, the son of deceased hostage Youssef Ziyadne, whose body was found beside him in an underground tunnel near the southern city of Rafah.

Yousef Al-Ziyadnah, 53, who was kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was found dead in a tunnel in the Rafah area, a statement from the Israel Defense Forces said. The IDF said he had been “killed in captivity” and confirmed that the dead bodies of at least two Hamas operatives were found nearby.

The hostage, Youssef Ziyadne, an Arab Bedouin, was seized along with three grown children on Oct. 7, 2023. Two of them were released, but there is “serious concern” about the fate of the third.

The recovery two bodies comes amid renewed efforts by mediators Qatar, the U.S. and Egypt to reach a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and free the remaining Israeli hostages.