Israeli troops in Gaza received the remains of an apparent hostage that Hamas handed over to the Red Cross late Friday night, two days after the Palestinian terror group claimed to have returned all the dead captives it could uncover.

Upon receiving the body, the Israel Defense Forces inspected the casket before draping it in an Israeli flag and holding a short ceremony led by a military rabbi.

The remains were then brought across the border early Saturday, with police escorting the casket to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv for identification, a process which officials have said may take up to two days.

Hamas did not identify the hostage whose body it handed over. If confirmed to belong to a captive, it would mean that 18 bodies of dead captives still remain in the Gaza Strip after 28 were held there at the start of the current ceasefire.

The IDF said the Red Cross collected the casket from Hamas in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, where footage and images from earlier Friday showed Hamas operatives digging in the Hamad Town residential complex, with Arab media naming a hostage whose body was apparently buried in a tunnel in the area.

According to Channel 12 news, the IDF expects Hamas to return the bodies of further hostages next week.

Hamas is looking for the bodies of Israeli hostages in Gaza by digging for tunnels that it placed under an entire residential city where there were thousands of apartments. This is under the Qatari-built Hamad City in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Hamas gave itself the right to use… pic.twitter.com/qjCkDG05M3

— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) October 17, 2025

Israel has accused Hamas of withholding at least some of the bodies deliberately, while the terror group insists that it cannot locate them due to the level of destruction in Gaza.

“The issue of the bodies is complex and requires time, especially after the occupation changed the landscape of Gaza,” senior Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said Friday, while rejecting Israeli threats over the return of the captives’ remains as “unacceptable pressure tactics.”

“We will return the bodies and adhere to the agreement as we promised.”

Hamas on Friday also called for mediators to follow up on the implementation of the remaining provisions of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement with Israel, which brought fighting in Gaza to a halt after two years of war triggered by its October 7, 2023, attack.

The terror........

© The Times of Israel