Trump Says Gaza Cease-Fire ‘Very Solid’ as Hamas Returns Bodies of 3 Hostages

The president added that getting the final bodies out of Gaza is ‘going to be tough’ but that all would eventually be returned.

President Donald Trump in Washington on Feb. 11, 2025. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump described the cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group as “very solid” over the weekend, as the terrorist group returned the bodies of three more hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Trump made the comments during an Oct.31 interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” aired on Nov. 2.

When asked how he would get Hamas to disarm, Trump said: “If I want them to disarm, I‘ll get them to disarm very quickly. They’ll be eliminated. They know that. Don’t forget, you said I got the remaining hostages. I got all the hostages out. But I always said the last 10 or 20 are going to be tough. But we were tough also, and they let them all out.”

On Nov. 3, Israel said that the remains of three hostages returned from Gaza the previous night belonged to Israeli soldiers who were killed on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on X that the soldiers were killed during the 2023 attack on southern Israel, and their bodies were taken to Gaza.

They were identified as Capt. Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, an American Israeli; Staff Sgt. Oz Daniel, 19; and Col. Assaf Hamami, 40.

A message of condolence posted on the Israeli prime minister’s official X account said that the government of Israel “shares in the deep sorrow of the Hamami, Neutra and Daniel families, and all the families of the deceased hostages.”

“The Government and the entire establishment for the missing and the captives of the State of Israel are determined, committed, and working tirelessly to return all of our deceased hostages for proper burial in their country,” the office said in a follow-up post.

Hamas handed over the remains of the three hostages to the Red Cross on Nov. 2, saying they had been found “along the route of one of the tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip,” according to the BBC.

The bodies were then transferred to Israeli forces in Gaza before being transported to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv for identification.

Trump said on Nov. 2 that he had spoken with Neutra’s family.

“We got Neutra, you know, from New York, from the United States. I spoke to his parents,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “They’re thrilled in one sense, but in another sense, obviously, they’re not too great. But we’re very happy because we’ve got three bodies back today.”

Since the cease-fire took effect on Oct. 10, Hamas has released all living hostages and the remains of 20. The remains of eight hostages are still in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has said that the return of hostage remains is happening too slowly and that some of the bodies returned did not match their records when they conducted identification checks.

Hamas has said the work is complicated by widespread devastation.

In return for the remains of Israeli hostages, Israel has been releasing the bodies of Palestinians back to Gaza.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said on Oct.31 that 30 more bodies had been handed over by Jerusalem, bringing the total number since the cease-fire agreement to 225.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.