All living hostages safely within Israel, only 4 of 28 deceased hostages to be returned Monday

All 20 of the living Israeli hostages held by Hamas have returned to Israeli territory, the IDF announced.

The remaining live hostages held by Hamas were all in IDF custody as of 11:42 a.m.

The released hostages have undergone a medical assessment and are en route to hospitals and will reunite with their families, the military added.

Despite earlier IDF estimates that the hostages would be returned in three rounds, in the end it took only two rounds, with Hamas seeming to want to have all hostages over to Israeli custody before US President Donald Trump was soon expected to speak to the Israeli Knesset.

By 8:10 a.m., the ICRC had already received those hostages from Hamas.

Late Sunday night, the IDF had said that if the live hostages were stable, they would move from Red Cross custody to IDF special forces custody, then to the Reim base, and then to the three hospitals: Shiba, Ichalov, and Beilinson.

However, if a live hostage was in immediate medical danger, a helicopter would be sent to rush them to Soroka Medical Center or to Barzilai Medical Center.

All of the first round hostages were stable enough medically that they did not require an emergency evacuation.

The IDF expects that some deceased hostages will be returned on Monday, but has no set numbers about how many, and is prepared for that part of the process to be drawn out over multiple days or longer. The deceased hostages will be transferred to Israel in coordination with further Red Cross-supervised exchanges, under the same verification and transfer protocols

Part of the process will also involve identifying the remains with specific hostages.

According to the IDF, Hamas is bound to assist a joint mechanism associated with the Trump ceasefire to help locate other deceased hostages, where finding them may be less of an exact science.

The ICRC will also transfer around 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons to the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and locations outside of Israel, such as Qatar and Turkey.

Already after the transfer of the second round of Israeli hostages, buses of the Palestinian prisoners left Ofer Prison for their release in Beitunia in the West Bank and left Ketziot Prison for their release in Gaza, respectively.

The carrying out of the releases by both sides makes it more likely than ever that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will hold. However, there are still many open questions about the mechanisms for governing Gaza politically and for whatever amount of disarmament Hamas may eventually undertake.

Since no timeline was made for those "second phase" issues, it is also unclear when they will be settled.

However, the IDF has already withdrawn from around 50% of Gaza, including all areas where the Palestinian population is residing.

Already, Hamas has fanned out with an estimated 7,000 or more of its forces to retake control of Gaza, pending the negotiations over the Strip's future with the US, other world powers, various moderate Arab states, and Israel.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum expressed outrage as only four of the 28 deceased hostages are to be returned on Monday.

"This is a blatant violation of the agreement by Hamas," the forum said. "We expect the Israeli government and the mediators to act immediately to correct this terrible injustice.

The handover follows the IDF’s full repositioning over the weekend, a key condition for activating the first tranche of the agreement. The government had simultaneously prepared a parallel list of Palestinian prisoners for release, with final approvals confirmed just ahead of implementation. Disputes over specific names and timing were resolved in recent days as part of finalizing the schedule.

Monday’s release marks the beginning of a rolling process expected to continue over the coming days.