Hamas Says It Has Returned All Hostage Remains It Can Recover, Putting Fragile Truce at Risk

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said on Wednesday night that it had handed over all of the remains of Israeli hostages that it had been able to recover without additional equipment, potentially putting a cease-fire with Israel in the Gaza Strip at risk.

In a statement, the Palestinian militant group said that it has “committed to what was agreed upon and handed over everyone it had in terms of living captives and what it had in terms of bodies that it could recover.” But it said that it needed “special equipment” to find and extract the remains of the rest of the deceased captives, adding that it was “making great efforts.”

According to the terms of a cease-fire brokered by international mediators last week, Israel and Hamas would stop fighting and the militant group would return all the hostages it held — both living captives and the bodies of those who had died, totaling 48 people — in exchange for the freeing of Palestinians held by Israel, among other provisions.

Hamas freed the 20 living hostages on Monday, and militants in Gaza had in the days since handed over the remains of eight people. Israel has identified six of those bodies as Israeli and one as Nepali. The identity of the eighth was not yet clear.

The announcement that Hamas was unable to retrieve the remains of additional hostages came after the militant group handed over two more coffins to the Red Cross on Wednesday, putting the total number of bodies it has handed over at 10. That, however, left the remains of over a dozen people unaccounted for.

While the office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, acknowledged receipt of two coffins from the Red Cross late on Wednesday night, a representative for Mr. Netanyahu declined to immediately comment on Hamas’s latest statement.

The truce agreement called for the immediate handover of all remaining bodies of hostages in Gaza — there were about 25 deceased captives thought to be held there before the cease-fire. But the deal acknowledged that some bodies could be difficult to locate and may take more time to retrieve because of the widespread destruction in the enclave. Two years of Israeli strikes have reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

On Wednesday, after Hamas’s announcement, the office of Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, said in a statement that he had directed the Israeli military to prepare a plan for the total defeat of Hamas in Gaza if the group did not abide by the terms of the deal unveiled by President Trump late last month, which also demanded Hamas’s disarmament.

“If Hamas refuses to abide by the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the U.S., will return to fighting and work to completely defeat Hamas, change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the goals of the war,” the statement said.

The question raised by Hamas’s latest statement is whether Israel and the United States will interpret it as a violation of the agreement.

Mr. Trump had previously criticized Hamas on Tuesday, saying in a post on Truth Social that “the job is not done.”

“The dead have not been returned, as promised,” he wrote.

Mr. Trump also claimed that Hamas had agreed to disarm, though the group has not publicly confirmed that it would.

In an interview with CNN earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that if Hamas refused to disarm, “Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word,” suggesting that fighting in Gaza could resume. But Mr. Trump also celebrated the deal and said the long-term prospects for peace were positive, given regional support for his plan.

Qatar, Egypt and Turkey were all mediators on the deal, along with the United States, and on Monday their heads of state and Mr. Trump signed a pledge to “work collectively” to implement the deal at a conference on the cease-fire held in Egypt and attended by dozens of world leaders.

Under the terms of the deal, Hamas must share whatever intelligence it has about where bodies may be found, and there is still some chance that Israeli officials may accept what were the group’s expected protestations of being unable to retrieve the remains given the conditions in the Gaza Strip.

The truce deal outlined how the remains of former hostages in Gaza might be located and returned if Hamas was unable to do so right away. It calls for the establishment of a joint task force, to include the United States and other mediators, that would share information and help find the remaining bodies, according to three Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak publicly.

Those officials said Israel believed that Hamas knew the location of many, but not all, of the bodies.

Adam Rasgon, Aaron Boxerman and Liam Stack contributed reporting.