Israeli officials said to tell Vance that Hamas can reach 10 of 13 remaining dead hostages

Israeli defense officials reportedly told US Vice President JD Vance during a meeting on Thursday that Hamas can return the bodies of at least 10 of the 13 deceased hostages still held in Gaza.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, and other military officials at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv presented Vance with the IDF’s intelligence assessment of Gaza and “stated unequivocally” that Hamas is capable of returning at least 10 of the 13 remaining hostages, even before international teams enter the Strip to assist with recovering the bodies.

It has been previously reported that Hamas might not be able to find all the dead hostages, something that Israel is aware of.

According to an Israeli official cited by CNN earlier this month, seven to nine bodies might not be retrieved, while another put that figure at between 10 and 15.

Before the ceasefire, Hamas was holding the bodies of 28 dead hostages. It has since returned 15 of them, along with releasing 20 surviving captives, having last handed over the remains of two slain captives on Tuesday night.

The funeral for one of those two hostages, Tamir Adar, was held Thursday in Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he was killed while defending during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught.

Among the mourners at Adar’s funeral were former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, who led the military during the October 7 attack and remained in the role until resigning in March.

Halevi also attended a rally on Thursday in the coastal city of Netanya, calling for the return of the remaining 13 deceased captives.

The photo, distributed by the Israeli Pro-Democracy Protest Movement, appeared to show Halevi in a blue button-down shirt listening to a fellow rallygoer whose face is not visible.

In his resignation letter, penned at the beginning of the previous ceasefire in January, Halevi wrote that the Israel Defense Forces was creating the conditions for the release of the hostages, and that the army would continue to fight to free them.

“The IDF will continue to fight to dismantle Hamas’s governance and military capabilities, to secure the return of all the hostages, and to strengthen the security conditions that will allow the safe return of residents to their homes in the south and north,” he said at the time.