JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza , the military said Wednesday, and the army was determining if another set of remains belongs to the man’s son.

JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, the military said Wednesday, and the army was determining if another set of remains belongs to the man's son.

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 23 people according to rescuers, nearly 15 months into the war with Hamas Palestinian militants.Far from Gaza, Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah have traded accusations of violating a ceasefire that ended their war,

Israeli military strikes across Gaza killed at least 22 people on Wednesday, Palestinian medics said, as the U.S. stepped up efforts to overcome sticking points between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire to end the war.

Israel’s military said the body of Yosef Al Zaydani was recovered in an underground tunnel in Gaza and that it was examining whether a second body was that of another hostage.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that its troops recovered the body of a hostage in Gaza and brought it back to Israel following a "complex and difficult operation".Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in an online briefing that troops carried out what he described as a "complex and difficult special operation" to retrieve the body.