Hamas has handed over the remains of another deceased hostage, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF confirmed in a social media post early Saturday local time that the “coffin of the deceased hostage” was brought into Israel and was being taken to Israel’s National Institute for Forensic Medicine, where the body would be identified.
The Associated Press reported on Saturday morning that the remains had been identified as those of Eliyahu Margalit, 76, citing Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office. Margalit had been abducted from the horse stables where he worked in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
In a previous social media post late Friday night, the IDF said that the Red Cross was “on its way to the meeting point in the southern Gaza Strip, where a coffin of a deceased hostage will be transferred into its custody.”
Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, had said earlier Friday that it was handing over the body.
The announcement comes after Hamas said Wednesday it had handed over all the Israeli hostage remains in Gaza that it had been able to recover, and extensive efforts and special equipment would be required to find the remaining bodies.
The Gaza peace plan called for Hamas to hand over all remaining hostages — 20 living and 28 dead — by Monday, Oct. 13. Since the plan took effect last week, Hamas has been accused of delaying handing over the remains of Israeli hostages still believed to be in the Palestinian territory.
Hamas has handed over the remains of at least eight confirmed hostages since the peace deal took effect, including Margalit’s remains.
While Hamas returned the 20 living hostages by the Monday deadline, the remains of only four deceased Israeli captives were handed over. Hamas transferred an additional four bodies on Tuesday, but the IDF said one of them was not a hostage. The remains of at least 20 hostages are still unaccounted for.
A senior U.S. adviser told reporters on a call Wednesday that “nobody is getting left behind,” noting they believe there are still many bodies buried under the mountains of rubble across Gaza. Senior U.S. advisers said the level of destruction also makes it difficult to move around in the Palestinian territory.
“It would have been almost impossible for Hamas to mobilize, even if they knew where all the 28 bodies were, to mobilize and get them home,” one adviser said Wednesday.
Strikingly, the adviser said the U.S. is sharing Israeli intelligence with Hamas to assist in finding hostage remains. The adviser also said Turkey has offered to help search for and retrieve remains by sending in expert teams with experience rescuing people from the frequent earthquakes in the country.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Thursday that American personnel would be part of the effort to recover the remains of the hostages that have yet to be turned over.
During negotiations that led to the peace deal, Hamas representatives said they did not know the location of all the remains of deceased hostages, according to Israeli media reports. President Trump also said in Egypt on Monday that not all of the bodies of the deceased hostages had been found, adding that unidentified parties were still “working out” how to locate an unspecified number of remains.
The senior U.S. advisers who spoke to reporters on Wednesday urged patience and said they are not at a point where they feel that the agreement has been violated, citing the difficulties in retrieving the remains still in Gaza.
Both the Israeli Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the group that represents the hostage families, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz have previously said the entire peace deal should be shelved until all of the hostages’ remains are returned by Hamas.