TEL AVIV, Israel (news agencies) — The announcement Monday that Hamas had released the body of another hostage offered hope to 13 families and an Israeli public desperately waiting for the remains of loved ones to come back from Gaza.
Then came word from Israeli officials that the militant group had returned only partial remains from a hostage who was recovered by Israeli troops nearly two years ago. That brought fresh heartbreak to the families of the hostages whose bodies are still somewhere in the devastated Palestinian territory.
More than two weeks after the start of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, the families are enduring a terrible waiting game in the quest to lay their relatives to rest. The slow return of remains is the most immediate threat to the truce that began Oct. 10, and it’s a sensitive issue for the Israeli public, which places religious and cultural importance on retrieving bodies for burial in Israel.
Orna Neutra, the mother of an Israeli-American soldier who was killed in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body was taken by Hamas, said her family longs for the closure of bringing her son Omer home.
“This is my son,” she said Monday in Tel Aviv. “We need that concreteness. We visited some of the families that did receive their loved ones back, and they shared with us some of the intimacy of receiving the body, actually seeing it, and how it felt for them. And I can say, as Omer’s mother, that I really need that.”
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire was strained Tuesday when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered new strikes in Gaza after the return of the body parts and after an Israeli official said the country’s forces were fired upon in southern Gaza.
Hamas responded by saying it would delay handing over what the group claimed was another hostage body.
As part of the ceasefire, Hamas released 20 living hostages earlier this month in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Militants also released the remains of 15 hostages.
Hamas says it has not been able to reach all of the remains because they are buried under rubble from Israel’s two-year offensive in Gaza. Israel has accused the militants of dragging their feet and threatened to resume military operations or withhold humanitarian aid if all of the remains are not returned.
This week, Hamas said it expanded its search for hostage bodies into new areas of Gaza. Egypt has also deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help retrieve bodies.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Palestinian families are also struggling to identify bodies that were returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire. Thousands of Palestinians from Gaza are still missing, possibly buried under the rubble or in Israeli hands.
Omer Neutra, 21, was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and moved to Israel to enlist in the military as a volunteer. He was serving as an officer on the Gaza border and was abducted with the rest of his tank crew. He and two others were killed. One soldier survived and was released after two years in captivity.
Neutra’s parents made 40 trips to Washington to lobby for their son, appeared regularly at protests in the U.S. and Israel and addressed the Republican National Convention last year. For more than a year following the Oct. 7 attack, they believed Omer was still alive. After 14 months, they received word from the military that intelligence indicated Omer was killed during the 2023 attack.
“It’s not based on any forensic evidence. It’s based on some intelligence, and it’s very hard to reconcile that,” Omer’s mother said.
Watching the return of the 20 living hostages reminded Omer’s father, Ronen Neutra, of the Israeli saying “to cry with one eye and smile with the other.” On the one hand, it was “miraculous” that all of the living hostages were released in a single day, Ronen said. But the family also knew there would be no joyful reunion for them.
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