Hamas released the bodies of four more hostages on Tuesday, a day after the group was supposed to release all hostages under the terms of a peace deal signed Monday.
The group has come under growing scrutiny to comply with the agreement.
In a letter to U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, families of the hostages thanked him for helping secure the release of those who were still alive but urged additional pressure on Hamas to return the bodies of the remaining hostages still in Gaza.
"We must ensure that all remaining hostages come home," the letter states. "We cannot rest, and we know you will not rest, until every last hostage is returned."
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President Donald Trump also weighed in on whether Hamas was following the terms of the deal, warning there would be consequences if the group fails to return all hostages and disarm.
"They will disarm, and if they don't disarm, we will disarm them," President Trump said. "And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently."
The bodies of 20 hostages are believed to still be in Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has helped facilitate the transfer of hostages, called the task of finding and recovering remains a massive challenge.
“The search for human remains, it’s obviously (an) even bigger challenge than having — I would say — the people alive being released,” Christian Cardon, an ICRC official, said at a U.N. news briefing in Geneva, according to the Associated Press.
