Israel escalates again in Gaza. Following an attack by militants on Israeli soldiers in Rafah that killed one reservist, the army launched a series of airstrikes on Gaza late Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning. More than a hundred Palestinians were killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. 250 people were injured. Hamas denies it was behind the attack in Rafah and calls the Israeli bombings a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire.
This was Israel’s largest attack since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10. More than two hundred Palestinians have been killed in previous bombings and shelling. According to humanitarian organizations, Israel is also partially withholding emergency aid and tents for Gaza, despite enormous shortages in the coastal strip. Israel itself points to ceasefire violations by Hamas.
Almost three weeks after the ceasefire came into effect, the distrust between the parties remains as high as ever. Israel said Wednesday morning that it will return to the terms of the truce, but at the same time Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said the war is “not over yet.” Donald Trump said Israel has the right to “strike back.” If Hamas does not “behave,” the US president said, “they will be eliminated.”
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In recent weeks, Trump attached great importance to ensuring that the ceasefire would hold despite the violations. Initially, he did this mainly by keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in check by sending a different envoy to Israel – described by some media as ‘Bibi-sitting’.
In the central Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, the Americans have set up a command center with American, British, Jordanian and Emirati soldiers. This led to snide comments in the Israeli press that their country has become an American ‘vassal state’ that is no longer in charge of its own country.
Diplomatic capital issue
One of the main points of contention between the parties is the bodies of deceased hostages. Israel accuses Hamas of not returning those bodies in a timely manner, Hamas says that this return is made more difficult by Israel’s large-scale destruction of the Gaza Strip. Because the US and Egypt are also involved in this issue, it has now become a diplomatic major issue.
The truce obliges Hamas to return as many bodies of the dead hostages as possible in addition to the living Israeli hostages. Although the text of the file acknowledged that finding all the bodies among the rubble in Gaza would be difficult, the news that Hamas would initially transfer only four of the total 28 bodies came as a shock to Israel.
Amid the celebration over the ceasefire, the interest group for the families of hostages and missing persons immediately called for the suspension of the truce with Hamas. Since then, Hamas has been transferring new bodies to Israel every few days. There are now fifteen. Thirteen bodies remain in Gaza.
Hamas militants carry a white body bag containing what is believed to be a body found during a search for the deceased hostages in Khan Younis in southern Gaza last Tuesday.
Photo Jehad Alshrafi/AP
The truce obliges Hamas to return as many bodies of the dead hostages as possible.
Photo Jehad Alshrafi/AP
According to both Jewish and Islamic tradition, a body should be buried as soon as possible after death. In Israel, people still talk about the never-returned bodies of Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who was executed in Syria in 1965, and missing pilot Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
On Monday, Hamas did not return the body of another deceased hostage, but the remains of Ofir Tzarfati, a hostage whose body had already been returned. The military then shared drone footage on Tuesday that Israel says shows Hamas staging the discovery and exhumation of Tzarfati’s body. In the almost fifteen minute video a white body bag appears to be thrown out of a building through the window, after which three men bury the body with shovels. The body bag is then dug up by an excavator, after which three Red Cross employees arrive.
It is remarkable that the body then appears to be buried again by the excavator in the presence of the Red Cross, and then exhumed a second time. A bystander takes photos. Red Cross employees are participating in a play by Hamas in which the body appears to have just been discovered, is the conclusion of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a message on X.
“Our team only witnessed what appeared to be the recovery of remains, without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it,” the Red Cross said in a general statement. “It is unacceptable that a fake recovery has been staged when so much depends on the fulfillment of this agreement and so many families are still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones.” The organization could not be reached for specific questions about the presence of their employees during the second exhumation of the body.
Means of pressure in negotiations
The drone footage shared by Israel undermines Hamas’s narrative that it is doing everything it can to return the bodies as quickly as possible. Israel almost immediately accused Hamas of deliberately delaying the return of the bodies to maintain leverage in further negotiations.
Nonsense, Hamas called that accusation. Some Hamas members who buried the bodies have since died themselves, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said last Saturday. “Or they can no longer remember where they buried bodies.” Last January, Director David Barnea of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad also warned that exhuming bodies would become very complex, and that excavation work could endanger it.
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President Trump previously seemed receptive to Hamas’s explanation. But in recent days his patience also seems to be wearing thin. “Some bodies are hard to reach, but others they can give back now, and for some reason they don’t,” Trump said on his social network Truth Social. He added that Hamas must quickly return all the bodies, otherwise unspecified “countries involved” would intervene.
Since last weekend, Hamas has been receiving help from an Egyptian search team, which has large equipment to retrieve bodies from the rubble.
Photo Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Hamas then said it would expand its search. Since last weekend, it has been receiving help from an Egyptian search team, which has large equipment to remove bodies from the rubble. Members of Hamas also received permission from Israel to search for bodies behind the so-called ‘yellow line’, under the supervision of the Red Cross, in the area still occupied by the Israeli army. Hamas said on Tuesday it would delay the return of another deceased hostage due to Israeli ceasefire violations.
The Gazan Civil Defense estimates that there are also around ten thousand Palestinian bodies under the rubble in Gaza. There is no equipment available to exhume those bodies. Palestinian authorities urge Israel to allow excavators. Israel itself has returned bodies of Palestinians that, according to forensic doctors in Gaza, showed signs of torture.
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