The Weight of the Returned: How a Single Body Reveals the Endless War for the Dead 

The recent return of Eliyahu Margalit’s body, a 75-year-old Israeli hostage killed on October 7, underscores the agonizing and politically charged struggle over the dead that continues to threaten the fragile ceasefire. While his repatriation offers his family a chance for long-awaited burial rites, it highlights a major point of contention: Israel accuses Hamas of breaching the truce by not returning all deceased hostages, while Hamas blames the near-impossibility of retrieving bodies from the vast rubble of Gaza, a task hampered by Israeli restrictions on heavy machinery.

This deadlock over the remaining bodies exists within a volatile on-the-ground reality, where the Israeli military still operates in much of Gaza, and a single incident can shatter the calm, revealing that even in death, victims like Margalit remain central pawns in a unresolved conflict.

The Weight of the Returned: How a Single Body Reveals the Endless War for the Dead 

The return of a body should bring closure. In the scarred landscape of the Israel-Hamas conflict, it only seems to deepen the chasm of grief, mistrust, and geopolitical stalemate. The confirmation that the latest remains handed over in Gaza were those of 75-year-old Eliyahu Margalit is not just another data point in a grim tally. It is a profound, human-scale story that unravels to expose the core complexities of a war where the fallen have become the final, most contentious bargaining chips. 

This is more than a report; it is an exploration of the unyielding human spirit, the politics of the deceased, and the devastating reality that even in death, there is no peace. 

Eliyahu “Churchill”: The Man Behind the Headline 

To understand the weight of this return, one must first know the man. Eliyahu Margalit was not a soldier or a high-ranking official. He was a 75-year-old resident of Nir Oz, a kibbutz that suffered devastating losses on October 7th. But to his family and friends, he was “Churchill”—a nickname hinting at a personality larger than life. 

The Israeli Hostages and Missing Families Forum eulogized him as “a cowboy at heart.” Picture him not as a victim in a news clip, but as a man who managed the cattle branch and horse stables at Nir Oz for years. His life was defined by the earth, by animals, by the rhythms of agrarian life. He was a fixture of a community built on ideals of collective living and resilience. His kidnapping and death severed a root that connected that community to its own history and identity. 

His story is layered with a particular, cruel tragedy. His death was announced by Israel back in December 2023, a full month after his daughter, Nili, who was also taken hostage, was released during the temporary November truce. Imagine Nili’s return: a bittersweet liberation, shadowed by the unknown fate of her father. For months, the family has lived in the torturous limbo of knowing he was dead, but without the ability to lay him to rest according to Jewish tradition, which demands a swift burial. The return of his body now finally allows for the first step of shiva, the traditional period of mourning, to begin. It is a mercy, but a painfully delayed one. 

The Gruesome Arithmetic of the Dead 

Mr. Margalit is officially the 10th dead hostage to be returned from Gaza. Yet, the IDF states that the remains of another 18 people are still within the Strip. This creates a gruesome and unresolved equation. The ceasefire deal, brokered by the U.S., was supposed to facilitate the return of all hostages and bodies. Israel’s fury is palpable; officials accuse Hamas of breaching the agreement by not returning all the bodies. 

However, the situation is far from black and white. The U.S. has downplayed the suggestion of a breach, and a leaked version of the agreement suggests it acknowledged the possibility that not all bodies would be immediately accessible. Why? 

The answer lies in the apocalyptic conditions described by UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who called Gaza “a wasteland.” Hamas argues, with support from visual evidence, that retrieving bodies is a Herculean task. Countless buildings have been reduced to mountains of concrete and rebar by Israeli airstrikes. The search for bodies buried beneath this destruction requires heavy machinery—excavators, cranes, and bulldozers—which Israel heavily restricts from entering Gaza, citing security concerns that such equipment could be repurposed by Hamas for military purposes. 

This creates a macabre catch-22: Israel demands the return of its dead, but its military campaign has made the location and retrieval of those dead exponentially more difficult, and its blockade prevents the very tools needed for the recovery. This turns the search into a primitive, horrifying endeavor of people, as Fletcher noted, “picking through the rubble for bodies.” 

A Ceasefire on a Knife’s Edge 

The tension over the dead hostages is the central fault line threatening to shatter the fragile ceasefire. The Israeli military’s statement on Friday night was a clear, public pressure tactic: “Hamas must uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the hostages.” 

Yet, on the ground, the ceasefire remains perilously thin. The reported incident in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, where the IDF opened fire on a “suspicious vehicle” it said was approaching troops, killing several Palestinians, illustrates the volatility. The IDF claims it acted in accordance with the agreement to remove an “imminent threat,” while Gaza’s Civil Defence reports retrieving the bodies of an entire family from the scene. 

This event underscores a critical and confusing reality: the Israeli military continues to operate in over half of the Gaza Strip, even during the ceasefire. For displaced Palestinian families trying to return to what’s left of their homes, the lines of control are not clearly marked. The journey home is a navigation through a lethal labyrinth, where a wrong turn can be fatal. 

The Broader Canvas: Geopolitics and the Shadow War 

Zooming out from the rubble of Gaza and the grief of Nir Oz, the return of Eliyahu Margalit’s body is also a move in a high-stakes geopolitical chess game. The involvement of the United States, Qatar, and Egypt is crucial. The revelation from US special envoy Steve Witkoff that President Trump felt the Israelis were “getting a little bit out of control” after a targeted strike in Qatar in September is telling. 

This strike, which killed five Hamas members and a Qatari officer in Doha, was a significant rupture. Witkoff admitted the U.S. team felt “a little bit betrayed,” and the fallout was immediate: they “lost the confidence of the Qataris,” and Hamas went “underground.” This single event nearly derailed the painstaking mediation efforts, highlighting how precarious these back-channel negotiations are. Qatar’s role as a mediator is indispensable, but it hinges on a fragile trust that can be shattered by a single military action. 

The ceasefire deal itself is a complex tapestry of exchanges: 250 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and 1,718 detainees from Gaza freed in return for hostages and bodies. Each body returned, like that of Mr. Margalit, is a thread pulled through that tapestry, testing its strength. The U.S. advisers’ claim that Hamas is acting in “good faith” by sharing information is an attempt to keep the process alive, even as Israel publicly fumes. 

The Unending Quest for the Missing 

For the families of the 18 remaining dead hostages, the return of Eliyahu Margalit is both a blessing and a torment. It is proof that returns are possible, but it also sharpens the agony of their own wait. The Jewish principle of Kvod HaMet—honoring the dead by ensuring a prompt and proper burial—is a sacred duty. The inability to fulfill this duty for their loved ones compounds their grief with a deep, religious anguish. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration that he is “determined” to pressure Hamas to find the remaining bodies is a political necessity, but on the ground, it clashes with the reality of a wasteland. The mission requires not just political pressure, but a logistically coordinated, humanitarian effort to clear rubble—an effort that is currently impossible amid the ongoing military presence and restrictions. 

The story of Eliyahu “Churchill” Margalit is a microcosm of the entire conflict. It is a story of a life lived in peace, brutally ended in war, and caught in a posthumous political struggle. His return offers his family a long-overdue chance to mourn, but it does not offer closure for a nation. Instead, it highlights the immense, perhaps insurmountable, challenges that lie ahead: the search for truth in the rubble, the negotiation for the dead, and the daunting, “overwhelming task” of rebuilding from a wasteland, where the ghosts of the missing still cry out for peace.