Israel will respond after Hamas handed over human remains that did not belong to missing Israeli hostages, which Israel considers a violation of the Gaza ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday.
Hamas said it was complying with the ceasefire and doing its best to locate hostage remains, but was hindered by a lack of equipment to identify bodies.
Netanyahu said human remains handed over by the militant group overnight belonged to a hostage whose body had already been recovered by Israeli forces earlier in the war, rather than one of the 13 hostages yet to be recovered.
He said he will convene his defence chiefs later on Tuesday to decide on “Israel’s next steps” in response.
Netanyahu said remains handed over on Monday belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli killed during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that precipitated the war, whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in the early weeks of fighting.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said finding all the bodies was a challenge because of the scale of destruction in Gaza. Nonetheless, “Hamas will continue to exert every effort possible to hand over the remaining bodies until this issue is fully concluded and as soon as possible,” Qassem told Reuters.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir both called on Netanyahu to take tough action against Hamas.
However, any response would likely have to first be greenlit by Washington, which brokered the fragile ceasefire earlier this month that has halted two years of war, a senior Israeli official said.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would be “very closely” watching Hamas’s return of deceased hostage bodies over the following 48 hours.
Under the ceasefire, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies. Israel says the militant group can access most of the remains without any problem.
Bulldozers allowed in to help in search efforts
The search for hostage bodies accelerated over the past few days since the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt. Bulldozers were working in Khan Younis on Tuesday, in the southern Gaza Strip, and further north in Nuseirat, as Hamas masked fighters deployed around them.
Some of the bodies are believed to be in Hamas’s network of tunnels running below Gaza.
Across the enclave, rescuers are searching through rubble for the remains of thousands of Palestinians still believed missing after two years of Israeli strikes which destroyed most of the enclave.
The International Court of Justice has given an advisory opinion stating that Israel must allow the United Nations aid agency in Gaza, known as UNRWA, to provide humanitarian assistance to the war-torn territory.
Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people are confirmed killed in the Israeli strikes and thousands more are missing. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters stormed through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza.
The sounds of explosions can still be heard in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue demolitions in areas where they remain deployed.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that troops will continue demolishing Hamas tunnels, 60 per cent of which were still intact.
