US official: Hamas was ‘very cooperative’ in locating body of final Israeli hostage

A US official says Hamas was “very cooperative” with efforts to locate the final Israeli hostage from Gaza.

“I will say Hamas was very cooperative in this. They fulfilled the obligation that they signed up for,” the US official says during a briefing with reporters on condition of anonymity, knocking “people with hysteria” who accused various parties of harming the effort.

The official touted the “fusion cell” created at the start of the October 2025 ceasefire that saw Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey work together to locate the remaining bodies of deceased hostages in Gaza.

“There are a lot of people who are in a war mindset for the last couple of years, but the reality is that the Middle East can only get better if people start working together,” the US official says, adding that Gvili’s return “is just an example of what can happen when Israel works with Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.”

The US official says US President Donald Trump’s top aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spoke on the phone earlier Monday with Gvili’s parents

The official acknowledges that the administration wasn’t sure whether it was actually going to succeed in retrieving every last hostage and may have had to move forward with Trump’s Gaza plan, knowing that some captives may have been left behind.

“Thank God we [didn’t] have to make that decision because we achieved that objective,” the US official says.