Israeli officials have informed the Trump administration that progress on the Gaza ceasefire agreement cannot continue unless Hamas increases efforts to recover the bodies of Israeli hostages, according to a report by Axios.
Under the terms of the current agreement, Hamas is obligated to make a "maximum effort" to return the bodies of 28 deceased hostages, including two American citizens. Israeli officials contend, as cited by Axios, that Hamas is failing to meet this commitment.
According to the report, a potential breakdown in the deal was narrowly avoided after Hamas returned five bodies over the past two days, raising the total number recovered to nine. This led Israel to postpone a planned reduction in aid shipments to Gaza and keep the Egypt-Gaza border crossing open.
Despite this, Hamas has claimed that it lacks the means to retrieve more remains without special resources. However, Israeli officials argue-as noted by Axios-that between 15 and 20 additional bodies could be recovered swiftly.
Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer reportedly conveyed Israel's concerns to President Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, accusing Hamas of deliberately stalling the process. According to the report, Israel also provided intelligence indicating that Hamas has access to more remains than it admits.
"We know they can do more," a senior Israeli official said in the report, emphasizing that Hamas is not exerting maximum effort.
During a press conference on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump addressed the recovery of the deceased hostages, stating that Hamas is actively searching for them. "It's a gruesome process, I almost hate to talk about it," he said. "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, and some of those bodies have been in there a long time. Some of them are under rubble, and they have to remove the rubble. There are graves, but some died in tunnels that are way down under the earth. The tunnels are three feet high; they lived like this for a long time. It's a horrible atrocity."
Efforts to advance to the next stage of the agreement, which includes discussions on governance and security in Gaza, are being complicated by this issue. Axios notes that some officials fear hardline ministers in the Netanyahu government may use the situation to derail the deal.