Families of Israeli captives’ demand Tel Aviv halt ceasefire deal
As Trump threatens to ‘order’ Israeli forces to resume the war, Tel Aviv and the captives’ families accuse Hamas of violating the agreement by delaying the release of deceased Israelis
The families of Israeli captives demanded on 16 October that Israel halt the Gaza ceasefire deal until the bodies of 19 captives are returned from the strip, a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to greenlight a new assault on the strip.
“At a time that Hamas is violating the agreements and still holding 19 hostages, there is no room for Israel to advance unilateral steps. Any diplomatic or military action that does not ensure their return is an abandonment of Israel’s civilians,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
Members of the forum have made a similar request to Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. The families had spent two years demanding an agreement to return the living captives.
The statement by the captives’ families coincided with continued Israeli ceasefire violations. One Palestinian was killed by a drone strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis on Thursday.
A day earlier, Trump threatened to order Israeli forces to re-enter parts of Gaza they withdrew from and resume the war, accusing Hamas of failing to comply with the ceasefire agreement.
“What’s going on with Hamas – that’ll be straightened out quickly,” Trump told CNN in a telephone interview.
The president threatened to order Israeli forces to “return to Gaza’s streets” if Hamas does not fully comply with his ceasefire plan, warning that “Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word.”
He added that “if Israel could,” it would “go in and knock the crap out of them,” stressing that he “had to hold them back.”
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, have also threatened to resume the war several times since the deal was reached.
Katz has ordered the army to prepare a plan to “crush” Hamas.
Hamas has fully abided by the agreement, releasing all 20 living captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has accused the resistance group of obstructing the deal by not returning all the dead captives.
The Red Cross has warned, however, that finding all the bodies of the deceased captives would be extremely difficult due to massive amounts of rubble from Israeli strikes. It also said some of the captives may never be found.
Hamas handed over nine bodies this week in exchange for scores of Palestinian bodies that bore signs of execution and arrived in Khan Yunis with their legs and hands cuffed. Nineteen deceased captives remain in the strip.
"The resistance has abided by the terms of the agreement. We have handed over all the living prisoners in our custody, as well as the bodies we were able to retrieve. As for the remaining bodies, locating and extracting them requires extensive efforts and special equipment. We are exerting great efforts to close this file,” Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Wednesday.