US said pressing Israel to grant Hamas operatives in tunnel safe passage if Hadar Goldin’s body returned

The Trump administration is pressuring Israel to allow the 100-200 Hamas terrorists holed up in a tunnel under Rafah safe passage if the terror group returns the body of slain IDF officer Hadar Goldin, Channel 12 news reports, citing a senior US official.

Hamas has given no official indication of when the ostensible body of Goldin is to be returned, and Israel has received no indication either. Hamas told Al Jazeera earlier that it had located the remains of Goldin, whom the terror group killed and abducted amid a ceasefire during the 2014 Gaza war.

According to the reported White House plan, after Goldin’s body is returned, the terrorists will surrender, Israel will pardon them and they will then go into exile or into the Hamas-controlled area of Gaza. The tunnel in which they are hiding will be destroyed, the network adds, while saying Goldin’s body was not in the same tunnel.

Top White House advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to come to Israel this week to close the deal, according to the report.

Solving the episode under the terms of the US proposal would serve as a model for Hamas’s peaceful disarmament, the American official tells the outlet.