Middle East crisis live: hostage killers ‘do not want a peace deal,’ says Netanyahu as six bodies recovered

A senior Hamas official said that some of the six hostages who were killed had been “approved” for release in the event of a truce deal, which has yet to be finalised despite months of mediation efforts, according to reports.

“Some of the names of the captives announced as found by the (Israeli) occupier… were part of the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved” in a proposed exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, the official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Hamas official said the six hostages were “killed by the occupation’s fire and bombing”, an accusation denied by the Israeli military.

Reports in the Israeli press quoted officials as saying that three of the hostages whose bodies were found on Saturday – Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Carmel Gat— would have been released in the first phase of the ceasefire deal under negotiation.

At least 40,738 Palestinian people have been killed and 94,154 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The ministry has said thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.

• Israel has confirmed the deaths of six hostages taken in the 7 October attack by Hamas.

• The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing. “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them,” he said.

• Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible. “Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he said. The Israeli prime minister told Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.

• Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire agreement, was to blame for the deaths.

• The news of the discovery of the bodies brought calls for a mass protest from a hostage family organisation, which blamed Netanyahu for failing to agree a hostage-for-peace deal with Hamas. The forum of hostage families called for a massive protest on Sunday, demanding a “complete halt of the country” to push for the implementation of a hostage release deal.

• Israeli forces are continuing their offensive on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and its refugee camp for the fifth consecutive day, according to reports. Since the beginning of the offensive last Wednesday, 14 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign, with dozens more injured or detained, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported.

• Three Israeli police officers were killed after their vehicle was shot at near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli authorities.

• Palestinian health authorities and UN agencies have began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory. Israel has agreed to limited pauses in fighting to facilitate the campaign, according to the World Health Organization. But despite this pledge, there are reports of Israel continuing to launch airstrikes on Gaza.

We have some more comments from Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent statement. In it, he vowed to “settle the score” with Hamas after the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Gaza tunnel yesterday.

The Israeli prime minister told Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.

Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier on Sunday near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

“We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. Just this morning, he murdered three policemen in Hebron,” he said, referring to Hamas.

“The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so.”

Hamas has not claimed the attack in the West Bank, but in a statement called it a “heroic operation by the resistance”.

Three police officers, two men and a woman, were killed early Sunday in a shooting attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron, police said. The Israeli military said the attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint.

Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has called for a strike to shut down the country’s economy in order to pressure the government to reach a deal to release the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip.

Lapid, who is also a former prime minister, called on every Israeli “whose heart was broken this morning” to join a major protest in Tel Aviv later in the day. He also called on Israel’s main labour union, businesses and municipalities to go on strike.

In a statement, the Yesh Atid party chief calls on “the Histadrut and the employers and the local authorities to shut down the economy,” arguing that “the country is collapsing” and “cannot go on like this.”

“I call on every citizen whose heart is broken this morning to come at seven [in the evening] to Begin [Road in Tel Aviv] to demonstrate with us,” the Yesh Atid party said.

His comments came after Israel recovered the bodies of six more hostages from captivity in Gaza. The discovery of the six bodies in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area leaves about 100 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza. The IDF has confirmed 35 of them are known to have died since October.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not rest until it catches those responsible for the killing of six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the Israeli prime minister said that Israel was committed to achieving a deal to release remaining hostages and ensure Israel’s security.

“Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” Netanyahu said.

A major impasse in the negotiations has been the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the Netzarim east-west corridor across the territory. Netanyahu has insisted that Israel retain control of the corridors to prevent smuggling and catch militant fighters. Hamas is demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Israeli police said the three people killed in Sunday’s shooting attack in the occupied West Bank were members of their police force (see earlier post at 07.38).

“Three members of the police force were killed this morning in a shooting attack,” Ouzi Levy, chief of the Israeli police in the West Bank, told reporters at the scene of the attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron.

Two of the officers were declared dead at the scene, while the third officer was taken to hospital by helicopter but later died, BBC News reports.

Israeli forces are continuing their offensive on the city of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and its refugee camp for the fifth consecutive day, according to reports.

This report is from Wafa, the Palestinian news agency. The claims in it have not yet been independently verified by the Guardian:

On the fifth day of the ongoing military attack, Israeli troops embarked on destroying streets and commercial shops in the downtown area of Jenin for the first time.

Wafa correspondent reported that Israeli bulldozers began demolishing shops in the al-Barid Street and the Cinema Square in the Jenin city center.

Since the beginning of the offensive last Wednesday, the aggressive Israeli military campaign has resulted in the murder of 14 Palestinians, with dozens more injured or detained.

The ongoing assault has caused extensive damage to civilian properties, public and private facilities, and critical infrastructure, including water and electricity networks.

The city and its refugee camp remain under a stringent blockade imposed by Israeli forces, who have reinforced their military presence in the area.

The military campaign across the West Bank, according to Israeli leaders, is designed to pre-empt attacks on Israelis after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month.