Hamas stalls in handover of hostage bodies
Trump also said that Hamas has told his top aides that it will disarm and that the terror group could be dealt with "violently" if it refuses to do so.
(TIMES OF ISRAEL) Israel on Tuesday decided not to reopen the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt the next day, as required by the ceasefire deal, accusing Hamas of failing to stand by its commitment to return the bodies of all dead hostages still held by Palestinian terrorists in the Strip.
Israel said it would also reduce the amount of aid flowing into Gaza as part of the sanctions against the terror group. The moves followed assessments by Israeli defence officials that Hamas has not made significant efforts to return the remaining bodies of the hostages, and amid rising anger among their families, with the main group representing them demanding that the ceasefire agreement’s implementation be halted until their loved ones are returned.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum is demanding a meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over Hamas’s failure to hand over the bodies of all hostages it is holding in Gaza.
“The families will demand from the chief of staff an explanation for why the IDF is continuing to implement the agreement normally, while there is a serious fear that the hostages will stay in captivity as Hamas blatantly violates the agreement that was signed,” a statement by the forum read. The families charge that the IDF is still acting like it was before the October 7 massacre, believing in Hamas’s word rather than understanding that it is a “deceitful and disgusting terror organisation”.
The Red Cross, meanwhile, said that it could take “much more time” to retrieve the 24 remaining captives due to conditions in Gaza, as the IDF announced that forensic experts identified the four slain hostages returned by Hamas on Monday night.
Israel confirmed on Tuesday night that the bodies of four hostages returned by Hamas a day earlier had been identified by forensic experts as Guy Illouz, 26, Bipin Joshi, 23, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and IDF officer Cpt. Daniel Perez, 22.
According to reports, caskets containing the apparent remains of another four dead hostages arrived at the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv for identification, the Health Ministry said. The caskets were collected from Hamas in Gaza City by the Red Cross.
Hamas informed mediators that it will transfer four more bodies of deceased hostages to Israel on Wednesday. The transfer would bring the number of hostages’ bodies returned by Hamas to 12.
Hamas has claimed that it needs time to reach all of the bodies as some of them are located underneath the rubble of buildings and tunnels bombed by the IDF, while others are located in areas under the IDF’s control. Israel has dismissed Hamas’s claims as stalling tactics.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Hamas misrepresented the number of bodies it told mediators it would be able to produce of the 28 that remained in Gaza before the deal was signed.
Trump also said that Hamas has told his top aides that it will disarm and that the terror group could be dealt with “violently” if it refuses to do so.
“I spoke to Hamas, and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes, sir. We’re going to disarm.’ That’s what they told me. They will disarm or we will disarm them,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
He later clarified that this message, rather than in a direct conversation between the president and Hamas officials, was passed along via his “people,” apparently referring to US special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
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