Hamas's armed wing announced Monday that it would return the body of a hostage it had recovered the day before as part of a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said they would “hand over the body of an Israeli prisoner, which was exhumed yesterday in the Gaza Strip, at 8 p.m. Gaza time (17:00 GMT).”
If the handover goes ahead, it will be the 13th murdered hostage returned by Hamas since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10.
The announcement comes amid renewed tensions that threaten the fragile truce. The Times of Israel previously reported that the Israel Defense Forces was preparing for the possibility that Hamas could return the body overnight Monday.
On Sunday, Hamas said it had located the body of a captive and would return it to Israel “if conditions on the ground are suitable.” That announcement came after a deadly attack on troops in the southern Gaza Strip in the morning and a subsequent wave of Israeli retaliatory strikes that threatened to shatter the fragile truce.
Hamas is still holding the bodies of 16 hostages. As part of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas released the last 20 live hostages last Monday, within 72 hours of Israel’s withdrawal to the Yellow Line. Hamas has also returned the remains of 12 hostages killed during the ceasefire.
The remaining deceased hostages include a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war, the last remaining hostage from before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
As the truce appeared to be largely holding Monday morning, soldiers opened fire on Palestinian terrorist operatives who crossed the ceasefire line and posed an “imminent threat” to troops in eastern Gaza City, the IDF said.
Palestinian media reported that two people were killed in the area of the Shejaiya neighborhood, where the IDF said troops opened fire in two successive incidents.
In both incidents, according to the IDF, terrorist operatives who crossed the Yellow Line — to which the army withdrew on October 10 under the terms of the first phase of the ceasefire — “posed an imminent threat” to troops, who opened fire to “eliminate the threat.”
In another incident, an Israeli Air Force fighter jet attacked and killed several terrorist operatives who approached Israeli forces in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the IDF said.
Also on Monday, Israel warned Hamas operatives entrenched on the eastern side of the Yellow Line — the 53 percent of the Gaza Strip still under Israeli control — to evacuate immediately or face attack.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to convey the warning to Hamas through the U.S.-led international ceasefire monitoring mechanism.
“Any Hamas operatives found beyond the Yellow Line in Israeli-controlled territory must evacuate immediately. Hamas leaders will be held responsible for any incident,” it said in a statement. “Anyone who remains in the area will be attacked without further warning, to allow IDF troops to operate freely and immediately against any threat.”
The warning came a day after gunmen emerged from a tunnel deep inside Israeli-held territory in Rafah, southern Gaza, and fired RPGs at troops, killing two soldiers, Major Yaniv Kula, 26, and Staff Sgt. Itay Yavetz, 21. Three other soldiers were wounded by sniper fire in the same area.
In response, the army carried out strikes against 20 targets in Gaza, which the Hamas-run civil defense agency said killed 45 people. The death toll could not be verified and did not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
While the Israeli military directly blamed Hamas for the attack on troops in Rafah, the terrorist group denied responsibility, claiming that"communication has been cut off" with operatives in Israeli-controlled areas.
