The sun sets over a heavily damaged area of Jabalia, in northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 7, 2025. (Credit: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP)
On Saturday, Israel announced that the body of a hostage returned the previous day in Gaza by the Palestinian movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad was that of Israeli-Argentine Lior Rudaeff, and in exchange returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians.
Following the return of Rudaeff’s remains to Israel, five hostage bodies remain, four Israelis and one Thai, to be returned by Hamas and its allies under the cease-fire agreement that took effect in Gaza on Oct. 10 under U.S. pressure.
“Following the identification process by the National Forensic Institute …, the Israeli army informed Lior Rudaeff’s family that he had been repatriated for burial,” a military statement said.
After this announcement, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, reported the “arrival of the bodies of 15 martyrs from Gaza who had been held” by Israel. They were handed over by the Red Cross in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, under which Israel must return the bodies of 15 Palestinians killed since the start of the war for every Israeli body handed over by Hamas.
‘No rest’
A volunteer ambulance driver of Israeli and Argentine nationality, Lior Rudaeff was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, in Nir Yitzhak while defending the kibbutz near the Gaza Strip with four other residents on the day of the Hamas attack in Israel that triggered the war. He was 61 years old, and his body was taken to Gaza that day to be used as a hostage. His death was confirmed by Israeli authorities in May 2024.
More than 250 people were kidnapped on Oct. 7 and taken into Palestinian territory; most have been returned to Israel during previous truces.
The Israeli Hostages’ Families Forum, the main organization advocating for the return of captives, welcomed the return of Rudaeff’s body, saying that “despite the pain, this brings some comfort to a family that has lived through more than two years of uncertainty and anguish.”
“We will not rest until the last hostage is brought home,” the Forum added in a statement. Except for a soldier killed in combat in 2014 during a previous Gaza war, the four other hostages whose remains are still to be returned were taken into Palestinian territory during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Despite several tense moments, a fragile truce has held in Gaza since Oct. 10.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of slowing down the process of returning the bodies. The Islamist movement says the delay is due to the fact that many bodies are buried under rubble in Palestinian territory, devastated by two years of war.
‘We will not compromise’
On Saturday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again urged Hamas “to honor its commitments … and return [all remaining bodies held in Gaza as hostages] under the cease-fire agreement.” “We will not compromise on this point and will spare no effort until we bring back all the hostages, to the last one,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Since the start of the truce, Hamas has released 20 surviving hostages in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and has returned 23 of the 28 hostage bodies still in Gaza to date: 20 Israelis, one Nepali, one Tanzanian, and one Thai.
The Oct. 7, 2023 attack resulted in 1,219 Israeli deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Since then, more than 69,169 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military retaliation campaign, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN, does not specify how many fighters were killed in this total.
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