In AFP footage, several masked Hamas fighters are seen emerging from a tunnel carrying a body wrapped in a white plastic bag, believed to be that of a hostage Hamas had planned to hand over.<\/p>\n
Behind them trails a crowd of men and children, some raising their mobile phones to capture the moment.<\/p>\n
Previously, Hamas handed over what it said was the 16th of 28 hostage bodies it had agreed to return under the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on October 10.<\/p>\n
But Israeli forensic examination determined Hamas had in fact handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body had already been brought back to Israel around two years ago, according to Netanyahu\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
In returning only the partial remains of an already returned captive, Netanyahu\u2019s office and a campaign group representing hostage families accused Hamas of breaching the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s office decried a \u201cclear violation of the agreement\u201d after identification procedures revealed the latest remains belonged \u201cto the fallen hostage Ofir Tzarfati, who had been returned from the Gaza Strip in a military operation about two years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n
Israeli government spokeswoman, Shosh Bedrosian, told journalists that \u201cin terms of consequences for Hamas nothing is off the table right now, but all of this is in full coordination with the United States, with [US] President [Donald] Trump and his team\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Palestinian boy carrying belongings walks past the rubble of destroyed buildings in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City on October 27, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
Bedrosian also accused Hamas of staging the discovery of Tzarfati\u2019s remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can confirm to you today that Hamas dug a hole in the ground yesterday, placed the partial remains of Ofir inside of it, covered it back up with dirt, and handed it over to the Red Cross,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government to take action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn light of Hamas\u2019 severe breach of the agreement last night … the Israeli government cannot and must not ignore this, and must act decisively against these violations,\u201d the forum said, accusing Hamas of knowing the location of the missing hostages.<\/p>\n
\u2018Break its legs\u2019<\/p>\n
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem rejected claims the group knows where the remaining bodies are, arguing that Israel\u2019s bombardment during the two-year conflict had left locations unrecognisable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe movement is determined to hand over the bodies of the Israeli captives as soon as possible once they are located,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
Hamas has already returned all 20 living hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n
Hamas also accused Israel of ceasefire violations, with the territory\u2019s health ministry saying that at least 94 people had been killed in Israeli fire since the truce began.<\/p>\n
On the ground in Gaza, 60-year-old Abdul-Hayy al-Hajj Ahmed told AFP he was afraid the war would start again because of the mounting pressure on Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they accuse Hamas of stalling, and that is a pretext for renewed escalation and war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to rest. I believe the war will come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister accused Hamas of stalling the release of the remaining bodies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time to break its legs once and for all,\u201d Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Third set of remains <\/p>\n
During their October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Hamas militants took 251 people hostage, most of whom had been released, rescued or recovered before this month\u2019s ceasefire.<\/p>\n
The attack itself resulted in the deaths of 1221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s subsequent assault on Gaza killed at least 68,531 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory\u2019s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.<\/p>\n
Despite the ceasefire, the toll has continued to climb as more bodies are found under the rubble.<\/p>\n
Ofir Tzarfati was at the Nova music festival on October 7 when he was \u201cabducted into captivity, where he was murdered\u201d, the hostage forum said.<\/p>\n
It added that this was the third time remains belonging to him had been returned, after his body was recovered at the end of 2023, and additional remains were returned in March 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the third time we have been forced to open Ofir\u2019s grave and rebury our son,\u201d Tzarfati\u2019s family were quoted as saying in the statement from the forum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe circle supposedly \u2018closed\u2019 back in December 2023, but it never truly closes.\u201d<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In AFP footage, several masked Hamas fighters are seen emerging from a tunnel carrying a body wrapped in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23545,74,48469,46729,3467,16945,9747,42,1454,78,34090,38609,647,6722,48468,43,19719,6848,3111,16422,17216,415,19063,18932,61,40,38,41,39,76468,50638],"class_list":["post-105872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accusing","tag-after","tag-benjamin","tag-carry","tag-ceasefire","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-immediately","tag-in","tag-intense","tag-israeli","tag-military","tag-minister","tag-netanyahu","tag-news","tag-ordered","tag-orders","tag-out","tag-pm","tag-powerful","tag-prime","tag-strikes","tag-strip","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-usbrokered","tag-violating"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}