Al-Qassam has returned the body of Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, whose remains Israel was unable to recover for 11 years.
The Israeli government announced on Sunday that it had received the body of an Israeli captive from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, confirmed that the body was that of Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, who had been held since 2014.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the body was being transferred to Israel, where it would undergo standard forensic procedures to verify identity, including DNA testing at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Al-Qassam Brigades Recover Body of Israeli Officer Hadar Goldin in Rafah
The Al-Qassam Brigades stated that, as part of the Al-Aqsa Flood prisoner exchange agreement, they handed over the body after it was located in a tunnel in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The movement stressed that the handover took place under extremely difficult conditions in a previous stage of the conflict, and noted that recovering the remaining bodies will require additional specialized teams and equipment due to the scale of destruction caused by Israeli military operations.
Goldin was 23 years old when he was killed in early August 2014 during Operation Protective Edge.
His body was taken by Al-Qassam during a 72-hour ceasefire, as reported by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority. For 11 years, Israel was unable to retrieve his remains.
The moment the resistance recovered the body of Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin from Rafah—after holding it for 11 years—in an area Israel has controlled for a year and a half without ever managing to reach it.
Israel, which constantly claims to possess intelligence on every detail… pic.twitter.com/RBadyDgUcu
— FlyingBeagle "Abu Alya" (@FlyingBeagle_) November 9, 2025
Since the first phase of the ceasefire agreement began on October 10, Palestinian resistance factions have handed over 20 living Israeli captives and the bodies of 25 others, out of a total of 28.
Israel, however, claimed that one of the bodies it received did not belong to any of its captives and that another set of remains was not new, having previously been returned.
Israel is linking the start of negotiations for the second phase of the agreement to the recovery of the remaining bodies. Hamas maintains that retrieval will take time because of widespread destruction across the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, approximately 9,500 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks remain under the rubble, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, remain imprisoned by Israel, where they face torture, starvation, and medical neglect. Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and Israeli, have documented cases of deaths inside detention.
(PC, AJA)
