Can't find hostage bodies, says Hamas; Israel threatens action

Israel's defence minister threatened Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas does not honour the terms of a US-backed ceasefire that halted the war in Gaza.

The statement from defence minister 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 specialised 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's 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."