Jerusalem (CNN) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered the Israeli military to carry out “immediate, powerful” strikes in Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of violating the US-brokered ceasefire deal and staging the discovery of a deceased hostage.
“At the conclusion of the security consultations, Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed the military echelon to carry out immediate, powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip,” the office of the Prime Minister said in a short statement. The US was notified of the decision to carry out strikes in Gaza, a US official told CNN.
A military official said Hamas had attacked Israeli troops east of the so-called yellow line, which separates Israeli-occupied Gaza from the remainder of the territory.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hamas would pay a “heavy price” for the attack on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and vowed that Israel would respond “with great force.”
Earlier Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office said that Hamas was in “clear violation” of the Gaza ceasefire agreement after returning remains to Israel that did not belong to any of the 13 hostages still unaccounted for in the enclave.
The IDF also released a drone video on Tuesday that they say shows Hamas operatives burying a white cloth containing a body in Gaza City and then staging its discovery in front of the Red Cross.
In the nearly 15-minute clip, three men are seen dragging a white shroud into a bulldozed plot of land near a building and covering the shroud with dirt. After the shroud is completely covered, a bulldozer scoops up the dirt and drops it into a nearby pile. Moments later, Red Cross officials arrive on the scene as the shroud containing the body is pulled from the dirt. With the Red Cross standing nearby, the video shows the white cloth being buried and uncovered once again as someone with a cell phone appears to take a video of the scene.
The military said the video showed that Hamas “is attempting to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies” of the remaining deceased hostages.
CNN has reached out to Hamas and the Red Cross for comment.
After Netanyahu said Israel would carry out new strikes in Gaza, the armed wing of Hamas announced it would postpone the handover of a hostage’s body that was recovered in southern Gaza on Tuesday due to Israel’s “violations.”
The militant group also warned that any Israeli escalation would “hinder search and excavation operations and the retrieval of bodies” of the deceased Israeli hostages.
Hamas had been set to transfer the remains of a deceased hostage to Israel via the Red Cross on Tuesday. The body was unearthed in Nuseirat in central Gaza from the rubble of a building where Israel had carried out a rescue operation in June 2024. The operation rescued three Israeli hostages.
Hamas said at the time that other hostages had been killed during the Israeli operation, which both Israel and the United States denied. But CNN has geolocated footage from the recovery of the body that shows it is the same building where the rescue occurred, raising fresh questions about whether Israeli hostages were killed during the mission. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said more than 270 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured as a result of the rescue operation.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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