The Israel Defense Forces have confirmed the identities of two hostages whose bodies were returned by Hamas on Tuesday as those of 85-year-old Aryeh Zalmanovich and 38-year-old Master Sergeant Tamir Adar. The two were among dozens abducted during the 7 October 2023 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz.
According to the IDF, Zalmanovich was taken from his home and later killed in captivity on 17 November 2023, while Adar, a community security officer, died while fighting Hamas attackers during the assault. Their remains were handed to Israeli forces by the Red Cross, which received them earlier from Hamas inside Gaza.
The return of the bodies is part of the first phase of a US-mediated truce that has seen Hamas transfer 15 of 28 bodies of deceased Israeli hostages. Once the coffins arrived in Israel, the military escorted them to Tel Aviv for forensic confirmation and burial arrangements.
Israel has accused Hamas of stalling the process of returning the remaining bodies, while Hamas claims it is struggling to recover them from areas flattened by Israeli airstrikes.
“Hamas is required to uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages,” the IDF reiterated before the latest handover.
Under the same deal, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners, 1,718 detainees from Gaza, and returned 15 bodies of Palestinians for each Israeli hostage’s remains.
The arrangement also allowed limited humanitarian aid into Gaza, reduced Israeli troop presence, and paused fighting — though both sides reported breaches over the weekend.
The war began after the 7 October attack in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 others hostage. Since then, Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has left more than 68,000 people dead, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, which the UN considers credible.
