Israel has manufactured a patently contrived excuse to extend the hunger and suffering in Gaza. Hours after signing the peace treaty last week, they threatened reprisals against Gaza if Hamas failed to return all 28 of the bodies of deceased hostages within 72 hours. That invented deadline expired on Monday, Oct. 13. On Oct. 14, approximately 400 of the required 600 aid trucks were kept from entering Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah crossing, keeping long lines of trucks on the Egyptian side of the border.
On oct. 15, according to Reuters, mediators were able to get the Rafah crossing opened for the 600 trucks, though it is unclear whether Israel will “slow walk” the entry of the trucks. And the Western media are abuzz with stories as to how Hamas is cheating on the agreement.
In fact, there never has been, as Israel had claimed retroactively, an Oct. 13 deadline to deliver the 28 bodies. Further, the difficulties in locating the bodies of the hostages—with a significant number of them not in the possession of Hamas—were addressed in the negotiations, where a recovery team was established (e.g., to dig through the rubble, etc.), comprising delegations from Egypt, Türkiye, Qatar, the U.S. and Israel itself.
On Oct. 13, Hamas delivered 4 of the 28 bodies, while Israel a) delivered none of the 360 Palestinian bodies they are required to turn over; and b) declared Hamas in “blatant violation” of the agreement. Then on Oct. 14, Hamas delivered 4 more bodies and Israel delivered its first 45. (Israel has had in their possession all of the 360 bodies they were required to turn over, notably with none of the problems of bodies buried under rubble.) Israel claims that only 7 of the 8 bodies returned to them have been determined to be hostages; so only counting 7 bodies returned, Hamas has delivered 25% of their obligation while Israel has delivered 12.5% of theirs.
This whole exercise is a sadistic one, apparently to convey to the world that there is no need to get aid delivered quickly and/or that Israel will continue to use food as a means of blackmail—testing how far they can push Trump on his peace agreement.
