By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -Hamas said it would hand over to Israel on Tuesday the body of a missing hostage found in a tunnel in Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the militant group of violating the ceasefire in the enclave by turning over the wrong remains.
Netanyahu earlier on Tuesday said tests had shown that remains handed over the previous day belonged to a hostage whose body had been recovered earlier in the war, and not one of 13 still missing. He said Israel would respond to the violation.
Three officials present at a security consultation which Netanyahu convened to decide on a response said Israel was considering seizing control of more territory in Gaza.
Hamas said it was complying with the ceasefire terms and Netanyahu was looking for excuses to back away from Israel's obligations.
Video showed excavators in Gaza digging deep into the sandy subsurface.
ISRAEL SAYS FINDING OF BODY WAS STAGED
Under the ceasefire in the two-year-old war, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and war-time detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies. Israel says the militant group can access the remains of most of the hostages.
The issue has become one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he is watching closely.
Netanyahu said human remains handed over on Monday belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli killed during Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack that precipitated the war, whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in the early weeks of fighting.
The Israeli military said that Hamas men had planted Tzarfati's remains at an excavation site before calling in a Red Cross team and pretending it had found a missing hostage, to create a "false impression of efforts to locate bodies".
A 14-minute video published by the military showed three men placing a white bag at an excavation site and then covering it with earth and rocks. Reuters could not verify Israel's account of what the video showed. Hamas and the Red Cross did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier, a spokesperson for Hamas said finding all the bodies was a challenge because of the scale of destruction in Gaza and lack of the equipment necessary to retrieve them.
Nonetheless, "Hamas will continue to exert every effort possible to hand over the remaining bodies until this issue is fully concluded and as soon as possible," Hazem Qassem told Reuters.
MINISTERS WANT TOUGH RESPONSE
Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir both called on Netanyahu to take tough action against Hamas.
However, any response would likely have to first be green-lit by Washington, a senior Israeli official said.
Trump said on Saturday he would be "very closely" watching Hamas' return of deceased hostage bodies over the following 48 hours.
Two Israeli security sources said that bodies of only three hostages are presently beyond the reach of Hamas.
BULLDOZERS BROUGHT IN TO HELP SEARCH FOR BODIES
The search for hostage bodies accelerated over the past few days since the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt. Bulldozers were working in Khan Younis on Tuesday, in the southern Gaza Strip, and further north in Nuseirat, as Hamas masked fighters deployed around them.
Some of the bodies are believed to be in Hamas' network of tunnels running below Gaza.
Witnesses in Khan Younis said the Egyptian teams, working with armed Hamas fighters, were digging deep near the Qatari-funded Hamad Housing City in the western side of Khan Younis, reaching tunnel shafts.
Reuters images showed an excavation a dozen or so metres below the surface, with Hamas men at the bottom of the trench next to a tunnel opening in an apparent search for bodies inside.
THOUSANDS MISSING
Across the enclave, rescuers are searching through rubble for the remains of thousands of Palestinians still believed missing from two years of Israeli strikes which destroyed most of the enclave.
Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people are confirmed killed in the Israeli strikes and thousands more are missing. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters stormed through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza.
The sounds of explosions can still be heard in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue demolitions in areas where they remain deployed.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that troops will continue demolishing Hamas tunnels, 60% of which were still intact.
(Additional reporting by Tamar Uriel-Beeri in JerusalemWriting by Maayan LubellEditing by Peter Graff)
