After IDF exposes Hamas' fake hostage remains discovery, Red Cross says it was ignorant of deception

After accusing Hamas of staging a hostage remains retrieval, the IDF released drone footage of the incident, in which the Hamas operatives can be seen removing a body from a nearby building, burying it, and then uncovering it before the watching eyes of Red Cross representatives, who later denied prior knowledge of the stunt.

The IDF released the footage to journalists as well as on social media, showing the terror operatives clearly planting the body in the ground before representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived. 

“Yesterday, Hamas terrorists were filmed removing body remains from a prepared structure and re-burying them nearby, before summoning Red Cross representatives to stage a false ‘discovery’ for photographers,” the IDF said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. 

Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian mentioned the incident in a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon.

"For those journalists consistently seeking to spare Hamas and show empathy, that they cannot locate the bodies of our hostages that they murdered, listen to this," Bedrosian said.

"I can confirm to you today that Hamas dug a hole in the ground yesterday, placed the partial remains of Ofir inside of it, covered it back up with dirt, and handed it over to the Red Cross. The IDF caught the entire sequence of events on a military drone, an act that is deliberate and is a disgraceful deception that is just one of many lies Hamas has been propagating since the beginning of the war."

Meanwhile, following the release of the video, the ICRC said in a statement that it is "aware of a video pertaining to the recovery of a deceased person in Gaza.” 

“At the request of Hamas, the ICRC accepted to be present in good faith in its role as a neutral intermediary between the parties,” the statement continued. 

The ICRC denied prior knowledge of the fraudulent recovery. 

“The ICRC team at this location were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival, as seen in the footage,” it noted.

“In general, our role as neutral intermediary does not include unearthing of the bodies of the deceased. Our team only observed what appeared to be the recovery of remains without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it.” 

The Red Cross also said that “It is unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged, when so much depends on this agreement being upheld and when so many families are still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones.” 

In a statement of its own, released before the IDF shared the drone footage, Hamas had accused Israel of “hindering efforts to search for the bodies of its soldiers by preventing the entry of necessary heavy machinery and equipment and refusing to allow joint teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the resistance to enter several areas in the Gaza Strip to carry out this task.” 

Hamas refers to all the hostages as soldiers, whether they completed military service or not. 

The IDF statement contradicted Hamas, saying, “Hamas’ claims of lacking engineering equipment are baseless, such tools are unnecessary for the transfer of remains and do not prevent the return of the deceased hostages.” 

Pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib warned on his personal 𝕏 account that Hamas lies “every single step of the way.” 

“It goes without saying that the terror group has every interest in dragging out the process as long as possible to avoid going into Phase 2 and use the current time to consolidate its power in Gaza and rebuild its network, arsenal, and presence,” Alkhatib wrote about the staged recovery. 

What else is Hamas lying about? Most have probably already seen the video of Hamas’s gross hoax, faking the recovery of a deceased Israeli hostage’s body in Gaza and deceiving the Red Cross (ICRC) into believing that a discovery was made. It goes without saying that the terror… pic.twitter.com/zOPqQOWzZR

— Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) October 29, 2025

Late Tuesday evening, the terror group also claimed that it had “retrieved” the bodies of two additional hostages in Gaza, but did not specify when it intends to hand them over to Israel. 

Hamas named the two hostages in its announcement, however, their identities have not been confirmed by Israeli authorities. Once the remains have been handed over, Israeli forensic technicians will begin the work of identifying the deceased. 

Israeli media usually refrains from publishing the names of the hostages until the identities have been released by official sources.