Keystone
After the bodies of six hostages were found in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Joav Galant has called for an immediate meeting of the security cabinet. The cabinet must reverse the decision to maintain control over the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, Galant wrote at X. The decision is seen as an obstacle to an agreement with the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas on the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Galant wrote. “We must bring home the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity.” He stressed that Israel would “settle the score with all Hamas leaders and murderers, down to the last of them.”
The Russian army had previously announced that the bodies of six hostages had been recovered in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. They had been killed shortly before by their kidnappers.
The security cabinet decided on Friday night to leave Israeli troops in the so-called Philadelphia Corridor in the south of the Gaza Strip. Israel's demand for permanent control of the approximately 14-kilometer-long strip is one of the main points of contention in the indirect negotiations on a ceasefire with Hamas.
Israel runs under the corridor according to the official Hamas tunnel. Netanyahu insists on controls to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza. Egypt denies the existence of underground smuggling routes.
According to consistent media reports, a heated argument broke out between Netanyahu and Galant at the cabinet meeting. Galant accused Netanyahu of prioritizing the stationing of soldiers on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt over the liberation of Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip. He could just as well “decide to kill all the hostages,” Galant is said to have said, among other things.
SDA
