Israel Signals Hamas Might Struggle to Return All Remaining Hostages, Sources Say

Israel assess­es that Hamas may not be able to find and return all the remain­ing dead hostages in Gaza, accord­ing to three Israeli sources, a fact that may com­pli­cate efforts to final­ize a deal to end the war.

Sources say the Israeli gov­ern­ment is aware that Hamas may not know the loca­tion of, or is unable to retrieve, the remains of some of the 28 remain­ing deceased hostages. The lat­est intel­li­gence is believed to put the num­ber in sin­gle fig­ures; some sources had ear­li­er sug­gest­ed it may have been high­er.

One of the sources said the assess­ments are based on Israeli intel­li­gence reports, as well as mes­sag­ing from Hamas and medi­a­tors in recur­ring rounds of nego­ti­a­tions. The rea­son for the dif­fer­ence in the two assess­ments was not clear.

There are 20 hostages who are believed to be alive, with grave con­cerns for the well-being of two of them.

Dur­ing the lat­est nego­ti­a­tions for a hostage and cease­fire deal in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Israel has demand­ed the return of all the hostages – both liv­ing and dead – as a con­di­tion for end­ing the war.

The three Israeli sources say Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu and his cab­i­net have known for months that Hamas does not know the where­abouts of some of the deceased hostages and may there­fore be unable to meet that demand. CNN has asked the Israeli gov­ern­ment for com­ment.

The Unit­ed States has also known about the issue for some time, with nego­tia­tors in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion aware that some hostages were held by fac­tions in Gaza over which Hamas does not exert full con­trol.

Bar­bara Leaf, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Mid­dle East­ern Affairs under Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, told CNN: “It’s been the case from the out­set that they (Hamas) have not had con­trol over all of the hostages.” Leaf said recov­er­ing the remains of some of the dead hostages could be dif­fi­cult. “It’s far more like­ly they can recov­er all of the liv­ing hostages,” she said.

It is unclear how this uncer­tain­ty could affect the efforts to final­ize the deal announced on Wednes­day. One Israeli source said that Israel’s offi­cial posi­tion is that Hamas is respon­si­ble for all the deceased hostages and the Israeli gov­ern­ment expects all of them to be returned. The source said that Hamas might use the uncer­tain­ty over its abil­i­ty to return all the dead hostages to draw out the imple­men­ta­tion of any cease­fire arrange­ments, and to insist that it would not return all remain­ing hostages until Israel agrees to a full mil­i­tary with­draw­al from Gaza.

Anoth­er Israeli source expressed con­cern that Netanyahu might use the uncer­tain­ty as a pre­text to derail talks. Crit­ics of the Israeli prime min­is­ter, includ­ing oppo­si­tion lead­ers and fam­i­lies of hostages, have repeat­ed­ly accused him of delib­er­ate­ly under­min­ing nego­ti­a­tions to end the war, alleg­ing he impos­es new con­di­tions for polit­i­cal rea­sons, par­tic­u­lar­ly when agree­ments appear close.

How­ev­er, oth­er sources say that giv­en the heavy Amer­i­can and region­al pres­sure to secure a deal, Netanyahu is more like­ly to use the issue as lever­age over the final details of an agree­ment, rather than tor­pe­do­ing the entire frame­work under US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s 20-point pro­pos­al.

Gal Hirsch, a for­mer Israeli mil­i­tary com­man­der who now acts as hostage coor­di­na­tor for the Israeli gov­ern­ment, said Thurs­day that a joint task force will be set up to try and find the miss­ing remains of dead hostages. The task force will include rep­re­sen­ta­tion from Israel, the Unit­ed States, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.

The uncer­tain­ty about deceased hostages is par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive in Israeli soci­ety, as it res­onates with pre­vi­ous unre­solved cas­es of miss­ing sol­diers. Lieu­tenant Hadar Goldin was killed and his body tak­en by Hamas dur­ing the sev­en-week war in Gaza in 2014. His body has nev­er been hand­ed over, and is now count­ed among the 48 liv­ing and dead hostages Israel demands be returned. Goldin’s fam­i­ly has cam­paigned for years for his return, cit­ing Israel’s com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ple of leav­ing no-one behind in con­flict.

Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force nav­i­ga­tor, was cap­tured when his jet was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Near­ly four decades lat­er, his unre­solved dis­ap­pear­ance remains one of Israel’s most painful sym­bols.

One of Netanyahu’s clos­est con­fi­dants, Natan Eshel, wrote a mes­sage to a group of jour­nal­ists last week, refer­ring to the Gaza nego­ti­a­tions and say­ing “there will be some Ron Arads” – an indi­ca­tion that senior fig­ures in the Israeli polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment believe that some hostages’ bod­ies will nev­er be returned