Official in PM’s office: Israel won’t take action against Hamas so long as terror group keeps returning bodies

Amid threats from Israel to Hamas over the failure to return the majority of the slain hostages held in Gaza when the ceasefire began, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office indicates that as long as Hamas keeps handing over bodies, Israel will not seek to punish the terror group.

“They’re playing games, they could release more bodies,” says the official. “But we see that they’re releasing. So if it’s constant and we see a constant release, I think that that’s something that we will bear. But the minute we start seeing that it’s not constant, we’re going to pull some rope.”

“I think that in the near future, we’re going to see a bit more bodies being handed over,” says the official. “It takes time. I think that we have to understand that the finding of the bodies and all the logistics between that and bringing them over, it takes time. Israel understands that. And we’re making the decision regarding how long we will wait on that fact.”

“On one hand, we know that it takes time,” continues the official, warning that “we won’t let it be stretched out too much. The minute that Israel will see that it’s just being stretched out for no reason, I think that would be the minute that we will give up.”