Israel receives stays of hostage that Hamas says is IDF soldier killed in 2014 : NPR

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Crimson Cross acquired on Sunday the stays of a hostage in Gaza that Hamas claims is the physique of an Israeli soldier who was killed in 2014 and who has been held in Gaza for the previous 11 years. His stays are the one ones at the moment held in Gaza since earlier than the newest, two-year battle between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas mentioned it discovered the physique of the soldier, Hadar Goldin, in a tunnel within the enclave’s southernmost metropolis of Rafah on Saturday. Goldin was killed on Aug. 1, 2014, two hours after a ceasefire took impact ending that 12 months’s battle between Israel and Hamas.

The stays will likely be transferred to Israel and to the nationwide forensic institute for identification. If the physique is recognized as Goldin’s, there will likely be 4 our bodies of hostages remaining in Gaza.

His return can be a major improvement within the U.S.-brokered truce and shut a painful, 11-year saga for his household.

Initially of the weekly Cupboard assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned that holding the physique for therefore lengthy has prompted “nice agony of his household, which is able to now be capable to give him a Jewish burial.”

Bringing Israel’s fallen dwelling

Goldin’s household spearheaded a really public marketing campaign, together with the household of one other soldier whose physique was taken in 2014, to carry their sons dwelling for burial. Israel recovered the stays of the opposite soldier earlier this 12 months.

Netanyahu mentioned the nation would proceed attempting to carry dwelling the our bodies of Israelis nonetheless being held throughout enemy traces, akin to Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy hung in Damascus in 1965.

Israeli media, citing nameless officers, have reported that Hamas was delaying the discharge of Goldin’s physique in hopes of negotiating protected passage for greater than 100 militants surrounded by Israeli forces and trapped within the enclave’s southernmost metropolis of Rafah.

Gila Gamliel, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Expertise and a member of Netanyahu’s Likud get together, instructed Military radio that Israel will not be negotiating for a deal inside a deal.

“There are agreements whose implementation is assured by the mediators, and we should not permit anybody to return know and play (video games) and to reopen the settlement,” she mentioned.

Hamas made no touch upon a attainable change for its fighters caught within the so-called yellow zone, which is managed by Israeli forces, although they acknowledged that there are clashes going down there.

Hamas made no touch upon a attainable change for its fighters caught within the so-called yellow zone, which is managed by Israeli forces, although they acknowledged that there are clashes going down there.

Israeli troopers carry the flag-draped coffin of slain hostage Israeli-American Workers Sgt. Itay Chen throughout his funeral at Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, after his physique was returned from Gaza.

Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

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Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Constructive improvement within the truce

Because the ceasefire started final month, militants have launched the stays of 23 hostages. As a part of the truce deal, the militants are anticipated to return the entire stays of hostages.

For every Israeli hostage returned, Israel has been releasing the stays of 15 Palestinians. Ahmed Dheir, director of forensic medication at Nasser Hospital within the southern Gaza metropolis of Khan Younis, mentioned that the stays of 300 have now been returned, with 89 recognized.

The battle started with a Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, through which 251 folks had been kidnapped and 1,200 killed in Israel, largely civilians.

On Saturday, Gaza’s Well being Ministry mentioned the variety of Palestinians killed in Gaza has risen to 69,176. The ministry, a part of the Hamas-run authorities and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed data considered as usually dependable by unbiased specialists.

Displaced Palestinians stroll by way of a makeshift tent camp within the Muwasi space of Khan Younis, within the Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 8,2025.

Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

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Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

A mom’s ache

Again in 2014, the Israeli navy decided, primarily based on proof discovered within the tunnel the place Goldin’s physique was taken — together with a blood-soaked shirt and prayer fringes — that he had been killed within the assault. His household held what Leah Goldin now calls a “pseudo-funeral’ together with Goldin’s shirt and fringes, on the urging of Israel’s navy rabbis. However the lingering uncertainty was like a “knife continuously making new cuts.”

Leah Goldin instructed the Related Press earlier this 12 months that returning her son’s physique is an moral and non secular worth, a part of the sacrosanct pact Israel makes with its residents, who’re required by regulation to serve within the navy.

“Hadar is a soldier who went to fight and so they deserted him, and so they destroyed his humanitarian rights and ours as effectively,” Goldin mentioned. She mentioned her household typically felt alone of their wrestle to carry Hadar, a proficient artist who had simply gotten engaged, dwelling for burial.

Within the dizzying days after Hamas’ assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Goldin household threw themselves into making an attempt to assist tons of of households of the 251 folks Hamas had dragged into Gaza. Initially, the Goldins discovered themselves shunned as advocacy for the Oct. 7 hostages surged. “We had been a logo of failure,” Goldin recalled. “They instructed us, ‘we aren’t such as you, our children will come again quickly.'”