The announcement late last night that the delivery of the rest of the bodies of the dead hostages that are in the can’t be done immediately, as it doesn’t have direct access to them, has caused reactions in .
The Israeli side, officially for the time being, has limited itself to underlining that the non-handover of the bodies is a violation of its terms, but behind the scenes, it disputes what the Palestinian organization that controls it once again claims, informing them that it has information that Hamas has easy access to the bodies of at least six other hostages, but chooses not to hand them over immediately.
Netanyahu is under pressure to take action
The Netanyahu government is also under pressure from the organizations of the relatives of the dead hostages who are asking for action to be taken for the organization to hand over the bodies, as this delay is a violation of the terms. In this context it became known that the Netanyahu government, in addition to warnings that it will limit humanitarian aid to 300 trucks per day from the 600 that had been agreed, has postponed the opening of the Rafah border crossing (with a new announcement emphasizing that it will be opened later without specifying when) and has begun to work out scenarios that envisage the deployment of forces beyond the Yellow Line (the line behind from which they have retreated in the first phase) and the recapture of the Nejarim Corridor that connects the northern Gaza Strip with the South.
The scenarios that want Israel to prepare to start its operations again in a relatively short period of time came to flare up and the statements of Benjamin Netanyahu that: “Israel will achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza and will continue to fight against Iran and the organizations supported by Tehran that seek the destruction of the country.” This statement is interesting because when the armistice agreement was signed, the attitude of the Israelis was that “all the objectives of the war have now been achieved”.
Hamas accuses Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire
At the same time, however, Hamas hastened to accuse Israel of violating the terms of the truce. A senior UN official said Israel had violated the ceasefire, killing at least 24 people since Friday, and said a list of such violations had been handed over to mediators.
As he said: “The occupying power is working day and night to undermine the agreement through violations on the ground.”
Trump is holding back the collapse of the truce
From the above, it follows that the fragile truce is still maintained only – as President Trump himself pointed out – because the US does not yet consider that Hamas has violated it. According to a BBC report, senior advisers to President Trump claimed that the US government believes that “the mechanism continues to work” and that Hamas appears to be willing to abide by the agreements.
Trump’s advisers spoke shortly after the US president himself, who made it clear late last night that he continues to believe Hamas is committed to what it has agreed to. Trump, of course, argued that the organization should disarm because otherwise it would allow the Israeli forces to start the attack again. On the issue of the hostages, Trump appeared conciliatory to the organization, claiming that they are doing everything they can to find the remains of the hostages, many of which are in tunnels deep in the earth, under tons of rubble.
