Israel threatens to resume fighting vs Hamas

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s defense minister threatened Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas does not honor the terms of a United States-backed ceasefire that halted the war in Gaza.

The statement from Israel Katz’s office came after Hamas handed over the remains of two more deceased hostages, and said it would be unable to retrieve any more bodies from the ruins of Gaza without specialized equipment.

Since Monday, under a ceasefire agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump, the Palestinian Islamist group has handed back 20 surviving hostages to Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails.

Before the two bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages — along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.

“If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war,” a statement from Katz’s office said.

Hamas’ armed wing said the two bodies returned would be the last for now — falling far short of the plan’s demand to hand over all of them.

“The Resistance has fulfilled its commitment to the agreement by handing over all living Israeli prisoners in its custody, as well as the corpses it could access,” the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on social media.

“As for the remaining corpses, it requires extensive efforts and special equipment for their retrieval and extraction. We are exerting great effort in order to close this file.”

But senior US advisors said Wednesday, after Israel’s threat to resume fighting, that Hamas still intends to make good on its pledge.

“We continue to hear from them that they intend to honor the deal. They want to see the deal completed in that regard,” one advisor told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Still, any delay in returning the remaining bodies is likely to pile further domestic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tie humanitarian aid to the fate of the bodies.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has threatened to cut off desperately needed aid supplies to Gaza if Hamas fails to return the remains of soldiers still held in the Palestinian territory.

Israel, meanwhile, transferred another 45 Palestinian bodies that had been in its custody to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, bringing the number returned to 90, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said.