Hamas transferred two caskets containing the remains of two slain Israeli hostages, Inbar Haiman and Muhammad el-Atrash, on Wednesday night, as it claimed to have recovered the bodies of all the deceased captives “that it was able to reach.”

The bodies of 19 slain hostages have yet to be returned.

The two caskets were collected by the Red Cross from Hamas in Gaza City, then transferred to Israel Defense Forces troops who brought them out of the Gaza Strip.

Once in Israel, the caskets were inspected by the army, then draped in Israeli flags and honored in a brief ceremony led by a military rabbi.

Police proceeded to escort them to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv to identify the remains and determine the cause of death. Several hours later, the bodies were identified as belonging to Haiman and el-Atrash, and IDF representatives notified their families.

Haiman, 27, a visual communications student from Haifa, was murdered by terrorists at the Nova music festival near Re’im on October 7, 2023, and her body was abducted to Gaza, the IDF said, citing intelligence information. Her death was officially declared in December 2023.

She was the last female hostage still held in Gaza.

Sgt. Maj. el-Atrash, 39, a father of 13 from Sa’wa who served as a tracker in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade, was killed on October 7 and his body was abducted to Gaza. It was not until June 2024 that the IDF revealed, based on findings and new intelligence, that he had been killed while battling Hamas terrorists in the area of Nahal Oz on October 7.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that the government “shares in the deep sorrow of the Haiman and el-Atrash families and all the families of the fallen hostages.”

“The government and all branches of Israel’s national security system are determined, committed, and working tirelessly to bring back all our fallen hostages for proper burial in their homeland,” the PMO added.

Hamas did not identify the remains. It also did not do so the previous day, when one of the four bodies purported to be of dead hostages that it handed over was determined to be of a Palestinian. The terror group has yet to return the remains of 19 hostages.

As the two caskets were transferred out of Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas did not honor the truce deal, saying he ordered the military to ready a “plan to crush” the Palestinian terrorist group in the event of renewed combat.

“If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war,” a statement from Katz’s office said.

But Hamas’s military wing claimed in the lead-up to the handover that it had met its obligations under the October 9, 2025, US-backed ceasefire deal by returning all living hostages to Israel, and the bodies of all the dead captives “that it was able to reach.”

“What remains of the bodies of hostages [that were not returned] requires great effort and special equipment to search for, and we are making great efforts to resolve this issue,” it said.

‘Nobody is getting left behind’

Speaking to reporters shortly after the bodies returned to Israeli territory, US President Donald Trump claimed that Hamas was looking for the remaining deceased hostages held in Gaza.

“It’s a gruesome process… They’re digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

“Some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble,” he continued. “Some are in tunnels… that are way down under the earth.”

Mediators have warned that it may take weeks for Hamas to locate the bodies of all the hostages, due to the destruction across Gaza, an assessment echoed by a pair of senior Trump advisers during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday.

“We’ve heard a lot of people saying, ‘Hamas violated the deal, because not all the bodies have been returned.’ The understanding we had with them was we get all the live hostages out, which they did honor that,” said one of the advisers.

The October 9 agreement requires Hamas to release “all Israeli hostages, living and deceased” within 72 hours of the ceasefire taking effect — a deadline that expired on October 13. However, subclauses in the same agreement also state: “Within the 72 hours, Hamas will release the remains of the deceased hostages in its possession and those in the possession of the Palestinian factions in Gaza.” And, “Hamas will share, within the 72 hours, all the information it obtained relating to any remaining deceased hostages” through an “information-sharing mechanism.”

“Right now, we have a mechanism in place where we’re working closely with mediators… to do our best to get as many bodies out as possible,” the senior aide added on condition of anonymity. “We continue to give [the mediators] the intelligence that the Israelis have [on where bodies may be located] and we keep working in good faith until we are able to exhaust that mechanism.”

The second top Trump adviser, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Hamas did the right thing when they gave all of the 20 live hostages up at the same time. That was a big moment.”

The second adviser noted that it was only possible to begin retrieving bodies once the ceasefire came into place last week, given that Gaza had been an active war zone.

The amount of debris in Gaza dwarfs what was left after the World Trade Center was bombed on 9/11, the second Trump aide asserted. “On top of all that debris is a lot of unexploded ordnance, and presumably, under that… there are many bodies.”

“It would have been almost impossible for Hamas — even if they knew where all the 28 bodies were — to mobilize and get them all,” said the second Trump adviser.

“First we got three. Then we got four. Then we got another four,” the aide continued, citing incorrect figures on the number of bodies Hamas returned. The terror group transferred four bodies on both Monday and Tuesday, though one of the latter four was later identified as a Palestinian, while only two bodies — not four — were returned on Wednesday.

“We’re probably going to put together some program where we’re going to ask [Gazans] to see if they can help us to locate bodies, and we’re going to pay rewards for that type of good behavior,” the second Trump adviser revealed.

He added that the US has been in touch with Turkey, which is willing to send experts to help retrieve bodies, as they have experience derived from earthquakes. It is not clear whether Israel would accept such assistance, given the bad blood between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The sentiment in Israel is always [that Hamas] can do more. What we basically say to the Israeli side… is, ‘Give us whatever intelligence you’re hearing or seeing… If you think that there’s something [the mediators or Hamas] could be doing or should be doing that you don’t think they’re doing, then pass it over and we’ll convey it,” the first Trump adviser said.

While recognizing the complexity of the matter, the second Trump adviser stressed that the US is committed to retrieving all remaining bodies of hostages.

“We’re not going to leave here until everybody comes home… Nobody is getting left behind,” he said.

‘Slow-walking’

The briefing came as the Axios news site reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Netanyahu, accused Hamas of “slow-walking” the returns while speaking with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Citing US officials, the report added that two senior Israeli officials apparently passed on intelligence to the US showing Hamas has access to more of the bodies than it claims.

“We don’t see Hamas making maximum effort regarding the bodies. We know they can do more and we don’t think anybody should give them any discounts,” one of the officials said, as quoted in the report.

The US official told the news outlet that Washington believes Hamas will eventually return all the bodies, “but it is going to take time.”

“We will continue working on it but we can’t allow the deal to collapse,” the official stressed.