Hamas says to hand over remains of Israeli officer killed in 2014

GAZA CITY: Hamas’ armed wing said it would hand over on Sunday the remains of Israeli officer Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was killed during the 2014 war in Gaza.

Israeli forensic experts are expected to determine the identity of the remains once they are received.

“The (Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades will deliver the body of officer Hadar Goldin, which was found yesterday in a tunnel in the city of Rafah, at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) Gaza time,” the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

If confirmed, Goldin would be the 24th deceased hostage whose remains Hamas has returned since the start of the current ceasefire on October 10.

Goldin’s body has been held in Gaza since his death in 2014. Until now, Hamas had never acknowledged his death or possession of his remains.

Israeli media reported on Saturday that Israel had allowed Hamas and Red Cross personnel to search in an area under Israeli control in Rafah to locate Goldin’s remains.

Several outlets said Hamas recovered the remains in a tunnel beneath territory held by Israeli forces.

Shortly after those reports, Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir visited the Goldin family, pledging to bring home his remains and those of other dead hostages still held in Gaza, the military said in a statement.

Another Israeli soldier, Oron Shaul, was also killed in the six-week war in 2014.

His body was recovered earlier this year during the latest war, which erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Efforts to secure the return of both soldiers’ remains in past prisoner swaps had repeatedly failed.

Goldin, 23, was part of an Israeli unit tasked with locating and destroying Hamas tunnels when he was killed on August 1, 2014, just hours after a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire took effect.

The army said militants ambushed his team, killing him and seizing his body.

Israel listed Goldin among the deceased hostages whose remains it seeks to repatriate under the ongoing US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the latest Gaza war.

At the start of the truce, Hamas was holding 20 living hostages and 28 bodies of deceased captives.

It has since released all the living hostages and returned 23 of the deceased’s remains in line with the ceasefire terms.

In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of Palestinians.

Apart from Goldin, four hostage bodies — three Israeli and one Thai — remain to be returned from Gaza, all of them seized during the October 2023 attack.