Israel Gaza Latest News: Hostages’ Families Accuse Netanyahu After Six Bodies Found in Rafah Tunnel

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant on Sunday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire with Hamas and bring the remaining hostages home from Gaza, where the bodies of the six hostages taken on October 7 have been repatriated.

“It is too late for the kidnappers who have been brutally murdered. Those who are still held captive by Hamas must be sent home,” he said on social media platform X.

“The political and security cabinet must meet immediately to reverse the decision made on Thursday,” he said, referring to the cabinet’s decision to insist on stationing troops in the so-called Philadelphia corridor on the southern edge of Gaza.

Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping troops in the corridor to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons from Egypt is widely seen as one of the main obstacles to reaching a deal with Hamas in the Egyptian-Qatari brokered talks.

Galant has clashed repeatedly with Netanyahu and hardline religious nationalist ministers over the need for a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and repatriate remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Of the 101 Israeli and foreign prisoners still in Gaza, about a third are believed dead and the fate of the others is unknown.

According to Israeli media reports, Galant had a heated standoff with Netanyahu over the Philadelphia Corridor during a cabinet meeting on Thursday and warned that time was running out to reach a hostage deal.

After the bodies of six hostages were recovered from Gaza, the families of Israeli hostages put the blame on Benjamin Netanyahu.

The discovery sparked calls for mass protests by families of the hostages, who said their loved ones might have returned alive if a ceasefire was agreed.

The Hostage Families Forum called on the Israeli prime minister to take responsibility and explain what made it impossible to reach an agreement, as there are still 101 Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza, about two-thirds of whom may still be alive.

Speaking of the six, the forum said: “They were all killed in the past few days after being held captive by Hamas for nearly 11 months, suffering abuse, torture and starvation. The delay in signing the agreement led to their deaths and those of many other hostages.”

The bodies found were hostages captured during the Hamas-led raid in southern Israel on October 7 last year, which triggered the Gaza war.

Their deaths leave 101 Israeli and foreign captives still in Gaza, but about a third of them are known to have died and the fate of the others is unknown.

According to Israeli statistics, about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will not rest until the perpetrators of the murders of six hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are captured.

In a statement, Netanyahu insisted Israel was committed to reaching a deal that would free the remaining hostages and ensure Israel’s security — while saying anyone who killed hostages “did not want a deal.”

Hamas official Izzat Reshke on Sunday accused Israel of causing the hostages’ deaths and said Israel was unwilling to reach a deal.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Sunday for a strike to shut down the country’s economy in a bid to force the government to reach a deal to release the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Lapid, also a former prime minister, called on every Israeli whose “hearts are broken this morning” to join a large protest in Tel Aviv later in the day. He also called on Israel’s main unions, businesses and municipalities to strike.

Earlier, Israel recovered the bodies of six other hostages from the Gaza Strip.

Simon Harris reiterated his call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire after the bodies of six hostages were found in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Saturday.

Israel said they were killed shortly before Israeli troops arrived at the tunnel where they were found.

Palestinian militants opened fire on a car in the occupied West Bank, killing three Israeli policemen, as Israel has carried out large-scale raids in the area in recent days.

The attack took place on a road in the southern West Bank in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The attacks have been concentrated in urban refugee camps in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have been exchanging fire with militants almost every day since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Police confirmed that the three dead were police officers and said the attackers had fled.

Police said one of the officers killed was Roni Shakuri, 61, from the southern town of Sderot near the Gaza border. His daughter, Mor, also a police officer, was killed in a battle with Hamas militants as they tried to seize the Sderot police station during the Oct. 7 attack.

A little-known militant group calling itself the Khalil Rahman Brigades claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, while Hamas hailed it as a “natural reaction” to the war in Gaza and called for more action.

Violence in the West Bank has been increasing since Hamas attacked the Gaza Strip on October 7, sparking the war.

More than 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, mostly in Israeli military raids. Most appear to have been militants in gun battles with Israeli troops, but civilian bystanders and rock-throwing protesters have also been killed.

The United Nations, in cooperation with Palestinian health authorities, began vaccinating 640,000 children against polio in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, with Israel and Hamas agreeing to a pause in their 11-month war to allow the vaccination campaign to continue.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed last month that a baby had been partially paralyzed after contracting type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the region in 25 years.

Fighting began in central Gaza on Sunday and will move to other areas in the coming days. Fighting will be paused for at least eight hours for three consecutive days.

The WHO said the suspension may need to be extended to a fourth day, and the first round of vaccinations will last nearly two weeks.

Accompanied by their families, children packed a UN-run clinic in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, where about a million people have taken refuge, according to Palestinian officials. Medical staff used pens to mark the children’s fingers that had received injections.

Gaza’s health authorities said on Sunday that Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has killed at least 40,738 Palestinians and injured 94,154 since October 7.