Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is deciding next steps after Hamas returned the remains of a previously recovered captive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas has committed a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza by returning remains belonging to a previously recovered captive.
Netanyahu’s announcement on Tuesday has rattled the already straining ceasefire agreement and sparked fears over the nature of the Israeli response.
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The Israeli leader said he would convene top security officials for an emergency discussion later in the day to decide on “Israel’s next steps”, calling short a hearing in his ongoing corruption trial.
The latest remains handed over by Hamas were not from the 13 dead captives yet to be returned, according to Netanyahu. Instead, he said they were those of a captive whose body had already been retrieved by Israeli forces nearly two years ago.
Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet has called for harsh measures in response, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urging the re-arrest of Palestinians released in exchanges “in response to Hamas’s repeated and ongoing violations”.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the correct response was to “destroy [Hamas] completely”.
Other options include halting the already limited flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, expanding Israeli control of the enclave, or ordering air strikes targeting Hamas leaders, according to Israeli media.
Family grieves
Netanyahu identified the remains delivered on Monday as belonging to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli kidnapped from the Nova music festival during an attack led by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
His body was recovered by Israeli forces in November 2023. In March 2024, his family received additional remains for burial.
Tzarfati’s family said in a statement that this is the third time “we have been forced to open Ofir’s grave and rebury our son”.
Hamas agreed to return the remains of captives to Israel under the ceasefire agreement, but 13 bodies have yet to be turned over to Israeli authorities, posing a challenge to implementing the next stages of the agreement.
Hamas has said it is struggling to locate the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza, although the search has accelerated in recent days with the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt.
On Tuesday, the group announced on the messaging app Telegram that it had recovered another body in a tunnel under the Gaza Strip. The handover was scheduled for 8pm local time (18:00 GMT).
Ceasefire looks safe: Analyst
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, media correspondent Nour Odeh said that there were calls from Netanyahu’s allies and opponents alike to punish Hamas over the issue.
“Even the opposition is pushing Netanyahu, saying this should not be left unanswered and that Hamas is deliberately delaying the return of the bodies,” she said.
But Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg told media that the dispute was unlikely to derail the entire ceasefire agreement, with the United States and its regional partners so heavily invested in the deal to end the two-year war.
“This whole notion that the future, the present of the ceasefire, the assistance millions need so urgently, the chance to end a two-year genocidal campaign — that all of this will simply be thrown out because of a ‘violation’ is ridiculous,” Goldberg said.
