Hamas returns remains of Israeli hostage after Red Cross’s help in search

The International Committee of the Red Cross has accompanied members of Hamas inside areas of Gaza still under the control of the Israeli military to facilitate the search for the bodies of Israeli hostages, as the Palestinian militant group delivered the remains of another captive. Under the US-brokered ceasefire, which took effect on 10 October, Hamas is required to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. In exchange, Israel has agreed to hand over 15 Palestinian bodies for each Israeli. Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said on Monday it would deliver the body of a deceased hostage at 9pm local time, Reuters reported. Israeli media confirmed the IDF was working with the Red Cross to receive the remains in the evening. Hamas has so far returned the remains of 15 of those held captive but some of the others are believed to be in areas beyond the yellow line marking the Israeli withdrawal. If the identity of the deceased hostage delivered on Monday is confirmed, it would mean the remains of 12 hostages remain in Gaza. Hamas says it faces obstacles to locating them in the rubble left by the bombardment. “At the request of the parties, the International Committee of the Red Cross yesterday accompanied a party to the conflict as the party searched for the remains of the deceased past the IDF-designated ‘yellow line’,” said Sarah Davies, an ICRC spokesperson. “The parties to the conflict determined the modalities of the operation and entrusted the ICRC to act as a neutral intermediary. The ICRC was not involved in those negotiations.” Davies added: “The ICRC was not involved in the search for the deceased nor does it take part in the physical recovery of remains.” A Red Cross official confirmed that the party it accompanied on the search was Hamas. Under international humanitarian law, it is the responsibility of the parties involved in a conflict to search for, collect, and retrieve human remains. On Saturday, Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the militant group. “Hamas is going to have to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, including two Americans, quickly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will take action,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. As the 48-hour deadline neared, Hamas, accompanied by the ICRC, joined Egyptian teams authorised by Israel to search for remains beyond the line marking the Israeli military’s pullback inside Gaza. An Israeli spokesperson said the Egyptian team would use excavator machines and trucks in the search. Footage published by Qatar’s Al Araby network appeared to show members of Hamas’s “Shadow Unit” – part of the group’s military wing tasked with guarding hostages – accompanying a Red Cross vehicle in al-Mawasi near Rafah, which lies outside Israeli military control. The news was later corroborated by Israeli and Palestinian media. Shosh Bedrosian, an Israeli government spokesperson, said representatives of Hamas, alongside the Red Cross and the Egyptian technical team, “have been permitted to enter beyond the yellow line position in Gaza under close [Israeli army] supervision to identify the location of our hostages”. Felesteen, the largest news outlet in circulation in Gaza before the war, described by Israel as a “Hamas daily”, said on Monday: “Members of the Qassam brigades accompanied teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross during field visits to areas beyond the yellow line in the Gaza Strip and the city of Rafah, to inspect sites believed to contain the bodies of Israeli soldiers and prisoners.” The search for the bodies of Israeli hostages has become one of the most sensitive issues in the ceasefire. The effort to locate the remains has proved difficult, given the presence of an estimated 60m tonnes of debris across the strip, where, according to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 10,000 Palestinians are recorded as missing, buried under the rubble. Hamas has said it does not know the precise whereabouts of all the bodies, saying it has lost contact with several of its units that had been holding the captives and were reportedly killed during Israeli bombardments. However, on Sunday an Israeli government spokesperson said Hamas knew the whereabouts of the bodies. “If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said. Although Trump has conceded that some of the bodies are difficult to reach, he said “others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not”. “It may have to do with the disarming of Hamas,” he added. Washington said it had received assurances from Hamas that the group would disarm, though no timeline has been set. The militant organisation remains reluctant to surrender its weapons without firm guarantees about the future of its fighters. Israel has made Hamas’s disarmament a central objective, describing it as a key condition for bringing an end to the two-year war. Yet on Sunday, Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said the group’s weapons were “tied to the existence of occupation and aggression”. “If the occupation ends, these weapons will be handed over to the state,” he said. It remained unclear whether he was alluding to the still-unformed Palestinian governing authority expected to take over Gaza’s administration once Hamas relinquishes control. Another key element in cementing the truce will be the creation of a stabilisation force that will operate within the territory. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose diplomats took part in the ceasefire negotiations, had expressed his government’s willingness to take part in the force. However, on Monday the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said only countries that were “at least fair” to Israel could send troops to secure Gaza and ruled out Turkey’s participation. He said: “During the last four years and even before that, Erdoğan led a hostile approach against Israel. It is not reasonable for us to let their armed forces enter [the] Gaza Strip.”