Netanyahu says remains returned by Hamas are body parts of a hostage previously retrieved in Gaza

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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the remains of a hostage returned by Hamas overnight are body parts of another hostage who was recovered in Gaza by Israeli troops almost two years ago — an announcement that threatened to rattle the tenuous, U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement.

Under the truce, Hamas is expected to return all Israeli hostage remains as soon as possible.

Netanyahu called the return of body parts a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement by the militant group. He said he will convene top security officials for an emergency discussion on Tuesday afternoon to weigh Israel’s response.

Israeli media said his likely options include halting the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, expanding Israeli control of Gaza or carrying out airstrikes targeting Hamas leaders.

There are still 13 bodies of hostages in Gaza, and the slow recovery of those remains is posing a challenge to implementing the next stages of the ceasefire. Hamas has said it is struggling to locate the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza, while Israel has accused the militant group of purposely delaying their return.

During the two years of the Israel-Hamas war in the coastal territory, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of some 51 hostages.

The remains returned overnight have been identified as belonging to Ofir Tzarfati, Netanyahu's office said.

Tzarfati was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel that started the war. Almost 400 people were killed at the festival alone and dozens were abducted. In all, the militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages that day.

Tzarfati was killed in captivity and his body was retrieved by Israeli troops in November 2023. In March 2024, his family received additional remains for burial .

Tzarfati's family said in a statement that this is the third time “we have been forced to open Ofir’s grave and rebury our son.”

“Since then, we have lived with a wound that constantly reopens, between memory and longing, between bereavement and mission,” it added and described the return of body parts as an “abhorrent manipulation.”

Earlier Tuesday, Israeli authorities said they had killed three Palestinian militants early during an operation in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the latest action in Israel’s stepped-up military activity in the territory since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Israeli police said the three men were shot as they came out of a cave near Jenin, a town in the northern West Bank known as a militant stronghold. The Israeli military said in a statement that the militants “took part in terror activity in Jenin,” but gave no further details.

Two militants where shot and killed in the initial volley of gunfire. The third, who was wounded, was killed shortly after, according to the Israeli military.

An earlier statement said the Israeli military carried out an airstrike shortly afterward to destroy the cave. The army confirmed an airstrike in the area but gave no further details.

Hamas condemned the Jenin strike and later identified two of the three men as militants with Hamas’ Qassam Brigades. The third man was referred to as a “comrade” but no additional details about him were given.

Israel says its operations have cracked down on militants in the West Bank. But Palestinians and human rights groups say scores of uninvolved civilians have also been among the dead, while tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes.

The ceasefire in Gaza has been holding since it began on Oct. 10. In exchange for the returned dead hostages, Israel has so far handed back to Gaza 195 Palestinian bodies, fewer than half of which have been identified.

On Monday, 41 unidentified bodies were buried in the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah and a funeral was held in Israel for the slain hostage Yossi Sharabi, whose remains were returned earlier this month.

Over the weekend, Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help search for the bodies of hostages still in Gaza. That work continued Monday in Khan Younis.

The last 20 living hostages were returned to Israel when the ceasefire began, and in exchange Israel freed roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Most of those freed were seized in Gaza by Israeli troops during the two-year war and have been held without charge. Also among those released were 250 Palestinians sentenced to prison terms, most of them convicted for deadly attacks on Israelis dating back decades, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry.

Over 68,500 Palestinians have died in the two-year war in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

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Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Renata Brito in Jerusalem and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war