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Hamas said it would hand over to Israel on Tuesday the body of a missing hostage found in a tunnel in Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the militant group of violating the ceasefire in the enclave by turning over the wrong remains.
Netanyahu earlier on Tuesday said tests had shown that remains handed over the previous day belonged to a hostage whose body had been recovered earlier in the war, and not one of 13 still missing. He said Israel would respond to the violation.
Three officials present at a security consultation, which Netanyahu convened to decide on a response, said Israel was considering seizing control of more territory in Gaza.
Hamas said it was complying with the ceasefire terms and Netanyahu was looking for excuses to back away from Israel’s obligations.
Video showed excavators in Gaza digging deep into the sandy subsurface.
Under the ceasefire in the two-year-old war, 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 the remains of most of the hostages.
Remains belonged to body recovered in 2023
The issue has become one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he is watching closely.
Netanyahu said human 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.
The Israeli military said that Hamas men had planted Tzarfati’s remains at an excavation site before calling in a Red Cross team and pretending it had found a missing hostage, to create a “false impression of efforts to locate bodies.”
A 14-minute video published by the military showed three men placing a white bag at an excavation site and then covering it with earth and rocks. Reuters could not verify Israel’s account of what the video showed. Hamas and the Red Cross did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier, a spokesperson for Hamas said finding all the bodies was a challenge because of the scale of destruction in Gaza and lack of the equipment necessary to retrieve them.
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,” Hazem 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.
Two Israeli security sources said that bodies of only three hostages are presently beyond the reach of Hamas.
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.