Netanyahu orders attack on Gaza

BarcelonaBenjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli army on Tuesday to carry out "powerful" attacks on Gaza immediately. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a Hamas sniper opened fire on Israeli army troops conducting operations near the town of Rafah, triggering an Israeli response.

The decision comes after Hamas handed over remains that did not match any of the 13 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. A gesture that Tel Aviv interpreted as a violation of the ceasefire agreement. The Israeli prime minister's office confirmed this morning that the remains handed over on Monday night by Hamas They are not from any of the hostages remaining in the Strip, but from another hostage the army found in the Strip in December 2023 and who was already buried by the family. "After completing the identification process this morning, it has been discovered that the remains returned last night belong to the kidnapped Ofir Tzarfati, who was recovered from the Gaza Strip in a military operation approximately two years ago. The family has already been notified," reads Benjamin Netanyahu's statement.

The erroneous handover has caused astonishment in Tel Aviv, where Netanyahu's government has already described it as a "clear violation of the ceasefire" and has announced an emergency meeting of the security cabinet to discuss it. During the meeting, scheduled for 2 p.m. local time this afternoon, the leader will decide with the country's security officials what measures he will take in retaliation. While the ultra-right ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, call for punishing Hamas, opposition leader Yair Lapid says it is not sufficient reason to resume fighting. Currently, one of the measures the government is reportedly considering is taking control of more territory in Gaza, according to sources from the Reuters news agency.

Upon learning of Hamas's latest surrender, the family of Ofir Tzarfati—who was 27 years old when Hamas kidnapped and killed him in late 2023—issued a statement in which they lamented having been "deceived" again during their grieving process. "This is the third time we are forced to open Ofir's grave and rebury our son." The circle supposedly closed in December 2023, but it never fully closes,” the text reads.

The controversy over the misidentification of the remains has been exacerbated by a video released by the Israeli army, in which three men are seen placing a white bag in an excavation and then covering it with soil. Israel accuses Hamas militants of having planted Tzarfati’s remains in a hole before calling in a Red Cross team and pretending to have found a missing hostage, in order to create a “false impression of the efforts to locate the bodies.”

Hamas has so far handed over 13 hostages out of 28 to which it had committed as part of the exchange agreed with Israel for the ceasefire. The organization's spokesman, Hazem Qassem, told Reuters that finding all the bodies is a challenge due to the scale of the destruction in Gaza, but that "Hamas will continue to do everything possible to hand over the remaining bodies [...] as soon as possible." During the negotiation process, the Islamist group warned of the difficulties it would face in finding the remains, both in terms of a lack of resources and personnel, and the conditions of the terrain: Gaza is completely destroyed and covered in rubble, and the bodies are scattered throughout the enclave where, for more than two years, Ham Netanyahu's militiamen.

Netanyahu, tried for corruption

Because of these difficulties, the search efforts have been stalled for almost a week - Hamas has not handed over any remains since last Tuesday - but finally on Sunday Israel authorized Red Cross personnel and Egyptian rescue services, who had long offered to enter Gaza to assist in the search for the hostages. The authorization also allowed these forces to work beyond the "yellow line," which marks the area where Israeli army forces have withdrawn in this first phase of the ceasefire. In recent weeks, actors such as the United States have been putting considerable pressure on Hamas to hand over the remaining bodies in order to advance negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, which calls for the group's disarmament, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and the creation of an authority in Gaza.

Hamas announced Tuesday that it would hand over the remains of another hostage to Israel at 8 p.m. local time. However, it reversed the decision following Netanyahu's order to attack the Strip. Gaza authorities, for their part, denounce Israel's systematic and flagrant violations of the ceasefire. According to the Hamas government communications office, Israel has committed more than 125 violations since the decision went into effect, resulting in the deaths of 94 civilians.

The uproar over the erroneous delivery coincides with a hearing by Netanyahu in court for corruption, which had to be cut short due to the emergency meeting of the security cabinet. The Israeli prime minister was scheduled to appear this morning in the Jerusalem District Court in a closed-door session to testify as a defendant accused of having received preferential treatment from tycoon Arnon Milchan in exchange for gifts. However, the hearing was interrupted three hours before the scheduled date.