The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday afternoon that an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team was on its way to receive a hostage’s body in the southern Gaza Strip.

The military “requests that the public act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification, which will first be communicated to the families of the hostages,” added the statement.

Hamas terrorists are “required to adhere to the [ceasefire] agreement and make every necessary effort to return the bodies of the fallen hostages,” it noted.

The announcement came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Hamas was slated to return the body of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin, 11 years after he was killed in action during the 2014 Gaza war (“Operation Protective Edge”).

“Yesterday, Hamas announced that it is holding the body of Lt. Hadar Goldin, of blessed memory. We are supposed to receive the body later this afternoon,” Netanyahu told reporters at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

“Throughout these years, we made great efforts in Israel’s governments to bring him back,” he stated, noting the “deep anguish of his family, who will now have the privilege of bringing him to burial in Israel.

“We said at the beginning of this war that we would bring back all the hostages, without exception,” the premier said. “So far, we have brought back 250. We will bring everyone home.”

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas announced it would return Goldin’s body around 2 p.m., after the terrorist group made a similar announcement the previous day but failed to follow through.

A senior Israeli political official condemned the delay in a statement to Israel Hayom on Sunday morning, saying that Jerusalem “demands his immediate return” and viewed Hamas’s actions with “utmost severity.”

Goldin, an officer in the Givati Infantry Brigade, was killed and his body was taken during fighting near the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah during “Operation Protective Edge” on Aug. 1, 2014.

After Hamas said that it had located the slain soldier’s body on Saturday, the Goldin family issued a statement: “An entire nation is waiting for Hadar to be brought home. This is a mission that must and can be fulfilled for the sake of all of us. The IDF chief of staff came to update us after Shabbat on the tremendous efforts being made to bring back the hostages, and we salute everyone involved in this national mission. We are waiting for official confirmation that Hadar has returned to Israel.

“No one in this country is ever left behind. We ask everyone to stay calm. Until it’s final, it isn’t over.”

During his visit to the Goldin family in Kfar Saba, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Eyal Zamir “reiterated his personal and the IDF’s commitment to bringing back Hadar and all the fallen hostages, and emphasized the importance of restraint at these sensitive moments, until his arrival and the completion of the necessary checks and verification,” the military said.

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