Israel believes Hamas could return most deceased hostages, argues it is breaching deal

Trump and other US officials say terror group searching for bodies it has yet to return, don’t accuse it of violating agreement; Israel disagrees and threatens return to fighting

Israel’s assessment of Hamas’s ability to return the majority of hostage bodies contradicts statements made by top US officials over the past 24 hours.

On Friday, as the IDF completed its redeployment in Gaza and the 72-hour clock began ticking for Hamas to return the 20 living and 28 deceased hostages, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Jerusalem knew that the bodies of at least nine hostages would likely not be returned in the three-day window, but assessed that Hamas would be able to return the majority of the 28.

The assessment was based on Israeli intelligence, said the official.

In fact, Hamas had returned no bodies of deceased hostages by noon on Monday, when the deadline expired. It has yet to return 19 of the 28, and claimed on Wednesday that it cannot access or locate any more.

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday accused Hamas of violating the terms of the deal and threatened a return to the fighting in Gaza.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told his Italian counterpart “that Israel knows full well that Hamas is capable of returning additional bodies and is choosing not to do so.”

However, two senior Trump administration officials gathered reporters for a phone briefing on Wednesday to argue that the terror group had not violated the ceasefire agreement and that it was indeed unable to reach any more of the bodies.

The wording of the deal appears to allow for both interpretations, since it includes contradictory phrasing.

“We’ve heard a lot of people saying, ‘Hamas violated the deal, because not all the bodies have been returned,'” said one of the senior US officials. “The understanding we had with them was we get all the live hostages out, which they did honor that.”

The second White House adviser said that it would have been “almost impossible for Hamas — even if they knew where all the 28 bodies were — to mobilize and get them all.”

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Hamas was indeed looking for the remaining deceased hostages held in Gaza.

“It’s a gruesome process… They’re digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

“Some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble,” he continued. “Some are in tunnels… that are way down under the earth.”

On Wednesday night, Hamas transferred the remains of two slain Israeli hostages, Inbar Haiman and IDF Sgt. Maj. Muhammad el-Atrash, and claimed to have recovered and returned the bodies of all the deceased captives “that it was able to reach.”

“What remains of the bodies of hostages [that were not returned] requires great effort and special equipment to search for, and we are making great efforts to resolve this issue,” it said.

Haiman and Atrash were the eighth and ninth slain hostages returned over the past week.

Top Israeli officials believe that Hamas is intentionally violating the deal.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Netanyahu, accused Hamas of “slow-walking” the returns while speaking with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the Axios news site reported.

Citing US officials, the report added that two senior Israeli officials apparently passed on intelligence to the US showing Hamas has access to more of the bodies than it claims.

“We don’t see Hamas making maximum effort regarding the bodies. We know they can do more and we don’t think anybody should give them any discounts,” one of the officials said, as quoted in the report.

A US official told the news outlet that Washington believes Hamas will eventually return all the bodies, “but it is going to take time.”

“We will continue working on it but we can’t allow the deal to collapse,” the official stressed.

But Katz threatened to resume fighting if Hamas did not honor the truce, saying he had ordered the military to ready a “plan to crush” the Palestinian terrorist group in the event of renewed combat.

“If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war,” a statement from Katz’s office said.

What does the agreement actually say

The issue of whether Hamas is in violation of the ceasefire is by no means straightforward.

Clause 5 of the October 9 hostage release, prisoner release and ceasefire agreement, signed by Israel, Hamas and the mediators in Sharm el-Sheikh, requires Hamas to release “all Israeli hostages, living and deceased” within 72 hours of the ceasefire taking effect. That deadline expired on October 13.

However, subclauses in the same agreement also state, contradictorily: “Within the 72 hours, Hamas will release the remains of the deceased hostages in its possession and those in the possession of the Palestinian factions in Gaza.” And, “Hamas will share, within the 72 hours, all the information it obtained relating to any remaining deceased hostages” through an “information-sharing mechanism.”

The October 9 agreement does not condition Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners on the return of deceased hostages. And, indeed, Israel on October 13 released all Palestinian prisoners required by the agreement before a single slain hostage was returned.

Trump’s original September 29 20-point plan, by contrast, states unequivocally that “within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.”

The September 29 plan, furthermore, clearly conditions Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners on the return of all hostages.

“Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context,” the Trump plan continues. “For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.”

However, this plan was not signed by the two sides.