Israel returned the bodies of 15 deceased Palestinians to the Gaza Strip on Thursday following the retrieval of the final hostage remains earlier this week, an Israeli Prime Minister’s Office spokeswoman confirmed to JNS.
The return of the 15 bodies was “part of the agreement” brokered by the United States that went into effect on Oct. 10, the spokeswoman stated.
The confirmation came after the Red Cross, in a statement, announced it had facilitated the return of the Palestinian bodies “after the remains of the final deceased hostage were recovered by Israeli authorities.”
Jerusalem is committed to transferring 15 Palestinian remains for every hostage body returned from Gaza. However, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stressed in an X post on Tuesday that Hamas “should get no credit” for returning Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili’s body.
The terrorist group “didn’t ‘release’ him” as it committed to under the U.S. ceasefire plan, Huckabee tweeted, adding that the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency had “found & recovered him.”
At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump told Axios on Monday that Hamas helped find Gvili in accordance with the truce brokered by his administration.
Hamas assisted in the search, he claimed, giving the terrorists credit for working “very hard to get the body back” and coordinating with Israel.
The Israeli military announced on Monday that the remains of Gvili, a 24-year-old Israel Police Special Patrol Unit (Yasam) officer at the time of his death, had been recovered by its soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
Gvili was slain by Palestinian terrorists during the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. His body was taken to Gaza and held there for 843 days.
As part of the intelligence operation, the IDF said multiple Palestinians were detained and interrogated, providing information on the specific section of a northern Gaza cemetery where Gvili had been buried.
According to the army statement, 20 military dentists assisted troops in examining roughly 250 bodies in just over 24 hours, after intelligence narrowed down the search to a specific burial plot in the cemetery.
With Gvili’s return, the IDF noted, the Palestinian terror group is no longer holding any hostages in the Strip for the first time since 2014.
Hamas abducted a total of 251 Israelis and foreign nationals on Oct. 7. Of those, 168 were freed alive, and the bodies of the remaining were returned in truce deals or recovered in IDF military operations.
