Hamas turned over three bodies to Israeli authorities via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Oct. 31, apparently without knowing if they were deceased hostages or not. This morning, Israeli authorities confirmed they were not of any hostages, the remains of 11 of whom are still in Gaza. The assessment on Nov. 1 was made following the completion of identification efforts at the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv, reported the Times of Israel.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed formation, said they had offered samples of the unidentified bodies it found for DNA testing, but “the enemy refused to receive the samples and requested to receive the bodies for examination.” Hamas said it handed over the remains “to counter the enemy’s claims.”
In a Substack article posted on the morning of Nov. 1, Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin rejected the notion, repeated constantly by Israeli media and officials, that Hamas is “playing with the deceased hostages issue” in order to stall and have more time to rebuild its power of control and its forces. Hamas is in breach of the agreement because it does specify that Hamas was to return all hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours. All the living were released, but not all the deceased were returned. “The fact that this did not happen is therefore a clear and substantive breach of the agreement,” Baskin writes.
Baskin also criticizes Hamas for not stressing enough before they signed the agreement that physically locating and retrieving all 28 bodies was physically impossible in the specified 72-hour timeframe. Hamas should have stated some of the very obvious objective difficulties in locating the deceased hostages, he says, and lists the reasons, including: Hamas only has access to 47% of Gaza; thousands of Palestinians are believed buried in the rubble and there’s no reason to think that some hostages aren’t buried there, too; most if not all of the Hamas commanders responsible for the hostages have been killed by Israel during the war; not enough heavy machinery in Gaza to do the work; and, no forensic lab in Gaza to do DNA testing to pre-verify the identities of the deceased hostages found in Gaza.
Baskin notes that the mediators “have stated that Hamas is in breach of the agreement by not returning the deceased hostages in the timeframe agreed upon. They have not said, as Israel claims, that Hamas is ‘playing with the issue of the deceased hostages to gain time.’” He also declares that there have been significant breaches by Israel, most notably the series of strikes earlier this week in which 104 Palestinians were killed.
Baskin reviews a series of messages he exchanged with Hamas during which Hamas proposed the following formula:
“1- The two parties are fully committed to the Sharm El-Sheikh Agreement
“2- In the event of a breach by either party, the two parties are obligated to inform the mediators to take the necessary measures to address the breach, while ensuring that neither party takes unilateral measures to respond to the breach.”
“I thought that this was a constructive formula and I sent it to one of the senior Israeli negotiators who responded: It is unnecessary,” Baskin writes. “To which I responded: Then both sides will continue violating (the agreement) without restraint.”
