Over the weekend, Hamas returned the bodies of three more Israeli hostages, including Israeli-American citizen Omer Neutra, marking the first confirmed transfers in days and briefly raising hopes that momentum toward completing the long-delayed first phase of the ceasefire agreement might resume. Under the deal, Hamas was supposed to have already released all of the deceased hostages. Instead, it has slow-rolled handovers, withheld remains, and, in at least one case last week, returned partial body parts to a grieving family in Israel to rebury for a third time.

And even this weekend’s step forward came with a grotesque caveat: On Friday, Hamas handed over three bodies it claimed were hostages, only for Israel to reveal they were not hostages at all. This macabre shell game underscores a grim pattern. Every time Hamas appears to comply, it does so only partially, cynically, or in ways that inflict fresh psychological harm.