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Hamas Stalls on Returning Deceased Hostages
(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - On Oct. 27, Hamas "returned" to Israel a casket containing additional remains of Ofir Tzarfati - who was shot and kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists at the Nova music festival, and whose body was recovered from Gaza by the IDF in December 2023. Hamas staged the ostensible recovery of these remains by digging a large hole in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, dumping in a body bag with Tzarfati's partial remains, covering it over, and then calling in the Red Cross to witness the "discovery" and extrication of the newly buried bag - showing a new level of depravity. The entire process - from the clandestine burial of the body bag through its "discovery" - was filmed by an IDF drone, a documented saga of Hamas fakery. Hamas would like to believe that its cause - survival, revival and ultimate return - is best served by stalling on the release of the deceased hostages, even as it resumes the deadly targeting of Israeli troops, reemerges and murders its rivals in the half of Gaza where the IDF is no longer deployed, and delays and ultimately prevents the implementation of the further elements in the Trump plan such as disarmament and demilitarization. The U.S. president evidently needs to convey to those interlocutors he mobilized last time that Hamas had better immediately return those remaining deceased hostages. And that if it doesn't honor its obligations, then Trump's assurances about the war being over will no longer apply and Israel will be free to resume its military campaign, with a new capacity to target those Hamas strongholds where it previously could not operate for fear of killing hostages.