Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the war in Gaza would not be over until Hamas was disarmed and the Palestinian territory demilitarised.
His declaration came as Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, handed over the remains of two further hostages on Saturday night local time under a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu’s office said that a Red Cross team had received the remains of two hostages from Hamas and handed them to Israeli forces in Gaza, from where they would be taken to Israel to be identified.
The issue of the dead hostages still in Gaza has become a sticking point in the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire.
Israel has linked the reopening of the key Rafah crossing to the territory to the recovery of the hostages’ remains.
Netanyahu cautioned that completing the ceasefire’s second phase was essential to ending the war.
“Phase B also involves the disarming of Hamas and the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.
“When that is successfully completed – hopefully in an easy way, but if not, in a hard way – then the war will end,” he added in an appearance on right-wing Israeli Channel 14.
Hamas has so far resisted the idea and since the pause in fighting has moved to reassert its control over the Gaza Strip.
Under the ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, Hamas has so far released all 20 living hostages, with the remains of nine Israelis and one Nepali.
The most recent handover was on Friday night local time – the body was identified by Israel as Eliyahu Margalit, 75, who died in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack.
In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2000 Palestinian prisoners and 135 other bodies of Palestinians since the truce came into effect on October 10.
Hamas has said it needs time and technical assistance to recover the remaining bodies, which it says are buried under Gaza’s rubble.
The two bodies being returned “were recovered earlier today”, the al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram.
Netanyahu hinted that the reopening of the vital Rafah crossing to Egypt could depend on Hamas returning all the bodies of hostages still in Gaza.
The Palestinian mission in Cairo announced that the crossing could open as early as Monday, though only for Gazans living in Egypt who wished to return to the territory.
Shortly afterwards, however, Netanyahu’s office said he had “directed that the Rafah crossing remain closed until further notice”.
“Its reopening will be considered based on how Hamas fulfils its part in returning the hostages and the bodies of the deceased, and in implementing the agreed-upon framework,” it said, referring to the week-old ceasefire deal.
Hamas warned that the closure of the Rafah crossing would cause “significant delays in the retrieval and transfer of remains”.
Further delays to the reopening could also complicate the task facing Tom Fletcher, the United Nations head of humanitarian relief, who was in northern Gaza.
“I drove through here seven to eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing and, to see the devastation – this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland – and it’s absolutely devastating to see,” he told AFP.
Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a “massive, massive job”.
He said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes who were trying to dig latrines in the ruins.
“They’re telling me most of all they want dignity,” he said.
“We have a massive 60-day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school.”
While the Rafah crossing has yet to reopen just over a week since the brokering of the truce, hundreds of trucks are rolling in each day via Israeli checkpoints and aid is being distributed.
Some violence has persisted despite the ceasefire.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said that it had recovered the bodies of nine Palestinians – two men, three women and four children – from the Shaaban family after Israeli troops fired two tank shells at a bus.
Two more victims were blown apart in the blast and their remains have yet to be recovered, it said.
At Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital, the victims were laid out in white shrouds as their relatives mourned.
“My daughter, her children and her husband; my son, his children and his wife were killed. What did they do wrong?” demanded grandmother Umm Mohammed Shaaban.
The military said it had fired on a vehicle that approached the so-called “yellow line”, to which its forces withdrew under the terms of the ceasefire, and gave no estimate of casualties.
“The troops fired warning shots towards the suspicious vehicle, but the vehicle continued to approach the troops in a way that caused an imminent threat to them,” the military said.
“The troops opened fire to remove the threat, in accordance with the agreement.”
- Agence France-Presse