Michael Hernandez
16 October 2025•Update: 16 October 2025
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Hamas is continuing its efforts to find the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages who were held in Gaza, a key component of his 20-point ceasefire plan.
Trump said Hamas is "absolutely" looking for the remains of deceased hostages and is searching through the rubble of buildings toppled by Israeli bombardment, as well as through tunnels underneath Gaza's streets.
"We have the living hostages all back. They returned some more today. It's a gruesome process," he said. "But they're digging. They're actually digging. There are areas where they're digging, and they're finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn't believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble."
A senior US advisor later told reporters that the "understanding" with Hamas was that they would initially work on freeing all 20 living hostages, "which they did honor."
"Right now, we have a mechanism in place where we're working closely with mediators and with them to do our best to get as many bodies out as possible," the advisor, who like one other, briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
"We continue to give them the intelligence that the Israelis have, and we'll keep working in good faith until we were able to exhaust that mechanism," the advisor said.
The advisor said that at present, "we're not at the point yet where anyone feels like the agreement has been violated."
Another advisor said Türkiye has offered to send an 81-person search team to Gaza to assist in the effort to locate the bodies of deceased hostages, saying that because of the country's experience in post-earthquake recovery efforts, "they do a great job of it."
"We think we're going to bring them in with a lot of other people as well. And I want to leave everybody with this notion: We were hopeful that we would get deceased out," the advisor said.
"There's a very complicated situation, and each day we're getting deceased out, and we're in good communication directly with the Arab mediators. We're in contact with Hamas and CENTCOM, and I can tell you that we're not going to leave here until everybody comes home," he added.
Trump earlier reiterated his warning to Hamas that it must disarm under the terms of his ceasefire agreement, saying that if it refuses to do so, "we'll do it," and the advisor acknowledged the task is "complex," adding that the parties are currently "in the process of defining how to get there in a way where everyone feels safe."
"It's not realistic to think everyone's just going to walk in, drop their arms and say, ‘Hey, there you go.’ A lot of the people, even on the Hamas side, are fearful of retribution from other people inside Gaza. So it's a very complex dynamic, but the sentiment from the Arab mediators and from Hamas is that they still want to continue to work together to find a way to do it," the advisor said.
Asked which countries have come forward to join the international stabilization force that is supposed to train and support a new Palestinian police force in Gaza under Trump's plan, one of the advisors said Indonesia, Egypt, Qatar and Azerbaijan are all in talks to aid the effort.
"What we're looking to accomplish is just a basic stabilization of the situation. The international stabilization force is starting to be constructed, and once that occurs, there'll be more efforts, but there's a lot of planning and a lot of very positive conversations between the sides," the advisor said.
