Israel exchanges accusations of ceasefire violation with Hamas

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed until further notice, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, adding that its reopening will depend on Hamas handing over the bodies of the deceased hostages, as the two sides continue to exchange blame for ceasefire violations.

Netanyahu’s statement came shortly after the Palestinian embassy in Egypt announced that the Rafah crossing, the main gateway for Gazans into and out of the enclave, would be reopened for entry into Gaza on Monday.

Netanyahu’s government and Hamas have for days been trading blame for violations of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Saturday evening in Washington, the State Department said it had received “credible reports indicating an imminent violation of the ceasefire by Hamas against the population of Gaza.”

The State Department said the planned attack on Palestinian civilians would constitute a “direct and serious violation of the ceasefire agreement.”

“If Hamas continues this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire,” the department said in a statement, without providing further details.

Hamas on Sunday denied accusations of an “imminent attack” or a “violation” of the ceasefire.

He accuses Israeli authorities of training, arming and financing “criminal gangs” that commit murders, kidnappings and contribute to looting.

The Palestinian activist group said Gaza police forces were doing their duty by pursuing these gangs to hold them to account.

“The movement calls on the US administration to stop repeating the misleading narrative of the occupation,” the text adds.

Trump had said he would consider allowing Israeli forces to resume fighting in Gaza if Hamas did not honor its commitments in the ceasefire deal he brokered.

The militant group launched a crackdown in urban areas evacuated by Israeli forces, demonstrating its power through public executions and clashes with local armed clans.

Hamas, in a statement Saturday evening, said Netanyahu’s decision “constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement and a rejection of the commitments he made to mediators and guarantor parties.”

He also said that the continued closure of the Rafah crossing would prevent the entry of equipment needed to search and locate other hostage bodies under the rubble, and thus delay the recovery and handover of remains.

Israel said it received two more bodies Saturday evening, meaning 12 of the 28 bodies were handed over as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal reached between Israel and Hamas last week.

The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with almost all residents driven from their homes, a global hunger monitor confirming famine and overwhelmed health authorities.

The dispute over the return of bodies and shipments of vital humanitarian aid underscores the fragility of the ceasefire and risks further upending the agreement as well as other major issues included in U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war.

As part of the deal, Hamas released the 20 living Israeli hostages it had held for two years, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and convicted prisoners imprisoned in Israel.

But Israel says Hamas has been too slow to hand over the bodies of the deceased hostages it still holds. The activist group says locating some of the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza will take time.

The deal requires Israel to return 360 bodies of Palestinian militants for deceased Israeli hostages and so far it has handed over 15 bodies in exchange for each Israeli body received.

Rafah has been largely closed since May 2024. The ceasefire agreement also includes increasing aid to the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people were identified in August as being affected by famine, according to the IPC Global Hunger Monitor.

After cutting off all supplies for 11 weeks in March, Israel increased its aid to Gaza in July, further intensifying it since the ceasefire.

About 560 tons of food have entered Gaza each day on average since the U.S.-brokered truce, but that remains well short of needs, according to the United Nations World Food Program.

Formidable obstacles to Trump’s plan to end the war remain. The key issues of Hamas’s disarmament, the governance of Gaza, the composition of an international “stabilization force” and steps toward the creation of a Palestinian state have not yet been resolved.