'We continue to hear...': Israel warns it will resume Gaza offensive if Hamas fails to honour truce

Jerusalem: Israel on Wednesday threatened to restart military operations in Gaza if Hamas fails to uphold the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire that brought a pause to months of conflict.

The warning came from Defence Minister Israel Katz’s office shortly after Hamas handed over the remains of two more deceased hostages. The Palestinian group said it could not retrieve additional bodies from the rubble of Gaza without specialised equipment.

"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," Katz’s office said in a statement.

The fragile truce, negotiated by US President Donald Trump, has seen Hamas release 20 surviving hostages since Monday in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Before the latest handover, Hamas had returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages, along with another body that Israel said did not belong to a hostage.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said the two bodies delivered on Wednesday would be the last for now, well short of the truce’s requirement to return all deceased hostages.

"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 group said in a statement.

"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."

Despite Israel’s warning, senior US advisors said they still believed Hamas intended to comply.

"We continue to hear from them that they intend to honour the deal. They want to see the deal completed in that regard," one US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Any delay in returning the remaining bodies, however, is likely to deepen domestic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has threatened to block humanitarian aid to Gaza if Hamas fails to return the remains of Israeli soldiers.

Humanitarian concerns

Meanwhile, Israel transferred 45 more Palestinian bodies held in its custody to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, bringing the total to 90, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Under the Trump plan, Israel is required to return 15 Palestinian bodies for every deceased Israeli hostage.

With the truce in place, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher urged Israel to fully open all border crossings to allow aid into Gaza.

"It should happen now. We want it to happen immediately as part of this agreement," Fletcher told AFP in Cairo ahead of his planned visit to the Gaza border on Thursday.

Although Israel’s public broadcaster KAN reported that the Rafah crossing to Egypt would reopen, it remained closed. The Israeli government did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, stressed that success would be measured by relief reaching civilians.

"The test is that we have children fed, that we have anaesthetics in the hospitals for people getting treatment, that we have tents over people's heads," he said.

Reports of violations

Gaza’s civil defence agency, operating under Hamas, said Israeli fire killed three Palestinians on Wednesday, including two trying to reach their homes in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood.

The Israeli military said troops acted after "several suspects were identified crossing the yellow line and approaching" forces in the northern Gaza Strip — a move it said "violates the agreement."

According to the military, "troops removed the threat by striking the suspects."

The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 assault on Israel, left Gaza in ruins and its population dependent on limited humanitarian aid. The UN declared a famine in the territory in August, a claim Israel denied. The restoration of aid is one of the key provisions in Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan.