By MELANIE LIDMAN, Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has ordered the army to immediately carry out “powerful strikes” in Gaza, in a new test for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
Netanyahu made the announcement shortly after Israel said that Hamas had opened fire at Israeli forces in southern Gaza.
Tensions were already high after Hamas returned a set of remains that Israel said belonged to a body of an Israeli hostage recovered earlier in the war.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that body parts returned by Hamas overnight were the partial remains of a hostage previously recovered in Gaza by Israeli troops almost two years ago, an announcement that threatened to rattle the tenuous, U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu called the return a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement, which requires Hamas to return all Israeli hostage remains as soon as possible.
As Netanyahu weighed a possible response, Israeli media said options could include halting the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, expanding Israeli control of Gaza or carrying out airstrikes targeting Hamas leaders.
In a sign of the fragility of the ceasefire, Israeli troops were shot at in the southern city of Rafah on Tuesday and returned fire, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because there hasn’t been an official announcement yet.
There are still 13 bodies of hostages in Gaza. Hamas said Tuesday it has recovered the body of a hostage that it plans to hand over this evening.
An Associated Press videographer in Khan Younis witnessed what appeared to be a white body bag being carried out from a tunnel by several men, including some masked fighters, and then transported into an ambulance. It was not immediately clear what was in the bag.
Palestinians watch as Egyptian machinery and workers search for the bodies of hostages in Hamad City, Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) This undated photo provided by the Hostages Family Forum shows Ofir Tzarfati, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023 and whose body was recovered by Israeli troops in Nov. 2023. (Hostages Family Forum via AP) Palestinian children look at the site where Israeli police says its forces killed three Palestinian fighters as they exited a cave in Kafr Qud near the West Bank town of Jenin, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Bodies of unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel are buried in a mass grave in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) Members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, along with Egyptian workers and machinery, search for the bodies of hostages in Nuseirat, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) Show Caption1 of 5Palestinians watch as Egyptian machinery and workers search for the bodies of hostages in Hamad City, Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) ExpandThe slow return of hostages’ bodies is posing a challenge to implementing the next stages of the ceasefire, which will address even knottier issues, such as the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force in Gaza and deciding who will govern the territory.
Hamas has said it is struggling to locate the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza, while Israel has accused the group of purposely delaying their return. Over the weekend, Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help search for the bodies of the remaining hostages. That work continued Tuesday in Khan Younis and Nuseirat.
This is the second time since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10 that remains turned over by Hamas have been problematic. Israel said one of the bodies Hamas released in the first week of the ceasefire belonged to an unidentified Palestinian.
During a previous ceasefire in February 2025, Hamas said it handed over the bodies of three hostages, Shiri Bibas and her two sons, but testing showed that one of the bodies returned was identified as a Palestinian woman. Shiri Bibas’ body was returned a day later.
A stricken family
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. In all, the fighters killed some 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
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.”
In exchange for 15 dead hostages returned from Gaza since the ceasefire began, Israel has handed back to Gaza 195 Palestinian bodies. The last 20 living hostages were returned to Israel at the start of the ceasefire, and in exchange, Israel freed roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel kills 3 Palestinians in a West Bank raid
Earlier Tuesday, Israeli authorities said they had killed three Palestinian fighters 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 combatant stronghold. The Israeli military said in a statement that the fighters “took part in terror activity in Jenin,” but gave no further details.
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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 combatants 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 fighters 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.
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.
Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Renata Brito in Jerusalem and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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