Families of Uriel Baruch and Tamir Nimrodi Can Finally Bury Them

The families of Uriel Baruch and Tamir Nimrodi said on Wednesday morning that their bodies were among four sets of remains handed over by Hamas overnight, according to the statement issued through the Press Service of Israel on 15 October 2025. Both men had been held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

“We sat shiva but couldn’t bury him. Now, at last, we can,” the Baruch family said, referring to the seven-day Jewish mourning period that normally begins after a burial. The Nimrodi family said it had received “the difficult news of the identification of our beloved Tamir” after “two years of agonizing uncertainty, full of hope and desire for a different ending”. Tamir, the family said, “was brutally kidnapped from his base and murdered in Hamas captivity”, and it pledged not to abandon the remaining hostages or their families “until the last kidnapped is released”.

Why naming the dead takes hours, and sometimes days

Officials at the identification centre cautioned that the process could take hours, or more than a day, depending on the complexity of each case, the statement said. Unlike the handover two days earlier, Hamas did not say whose bodies it was returning.

Remains recovered from Gaza are taken to the National Center of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv, the state institute that handles unidentified and disputed deaths. The Jerusalem Post reported on 12 October 2025 that the centre starts with a full-body CT scan to locate implants, old fractures and other markers that can be matched against medical records, then adds a forensic examination documenting scars, tattoos and injuries, a dental comparison, and DNA analysis against reference samples given by relatives. A straightforward case can be closed in about an hour and a half; a difficult one can take several days.

What the ceasefire deal required Hamas to hand back

Under the United States-brokered agreement, Hamas had 72 hours from the deal taking effect to return all 48 hostages, living and dead, with the 28 deceased captives due by the Monday, the Times of Israel reported on 15 October 2025. Four bodies were handed over that Monday rather than 28, and three more followed the next day.

The statement said that once the other two bodies returned overnight were confirmed, 22 bodies would still be in Gaza, and that Hamas was expected to hand over more remains later that day. FDD’s Long War Journal reported on 6 November 2025 that the ceasefire had taken effect on 13 October, that 20 living hostages had been released, and that the remains of 22 deceased hostages had been transferred by early November.

Where the two men were taken from

Baruch, 35, was abducted from the Nova music festival on 7 October 2023. He and his friend Michel Yoav fled the attack in Baruch’s car and were ambushed at the Mefalsim Junction, a road junction in southern Israel close to the Gaza border, where gunmen opened fire. Video later showed Michel dead in the car and Uriel lying nearby, but his fate stayed unresolved until March 2024, when new intelligence confirmed he had been killed on 7 October and his body taken into Gaza.

The festival was held near Kibbutz Re’im, a few kilometres from the Gaza border. An Israeli military investigation presented to bereaved families in April 2025 and reported by the Times of Israel found that 344 civilians who attended the festival and 34 security personnel were murdered or killed, that 171 of them died in the area of the party and an adjacent section of Route 232, and that 44 people were abducted to Gaza. It also concluded that the ground troops deployed on the border that morning had not been told the event was taking place.

Nimrodi, 19, served in an army unit that coordinated between Israel and international organisations working in Gaza. He was stationed near the Erez Crossing at the northern end of the Gaza Strip and was seized on the morning of the attack. Footage showed him with fellow soldiers, among them Ron Sherman, being forced towards their base gate in shorts and T-shirts before being taken into Gaza. Across the day, the Anti-Defamation League’s war timeline, last updated in April 2026, records at least 1,200 people killed and 251 abducted into Gaza.

What the statement did not say

It did not identify the other two bodies returned in the same handover, or say where in Gaza either man’s remains had been held. It gave no cause of death for Baruch beyond the 2024 intelligence assessment, and no detail of how Nimrodi was killed beyond his family’s wording. The counts also differ: the statement said 22 bodies would remain in Gaza, while the Times of Israel put the outstanding figure at 21 after the same handover.