Israel army chief Zamir threatens to kill 200 trapped Hamas fighters if captive soldier body not returned

Israel’s chief army of staff, Eyal Zamir, has threatened to kill 200 Hamas fighters trapped in tunnels in Gaza if the group fails to release the body of an Israeli captive, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

Zamir said the fighters wouldn’t be "allowed to leave alive," Yedioth Ahronoth reported, if the Palestinian group doesn’t find and give up the body of soldier Hadar Goldin.

Goldin was captured over a decade ago by Hamas in Rafah, after he was killed in an attack during an Israeli operation to decommission a Hamas-operated tunnel in the Palestinian enclave in 2014.

This came amid Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014, one of the deadliest on the Palestinian territory’s soil. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed during the seven-week war by Israeli strikes and gunfire..

The tunnel where the Hamas fighters are reportedly trapped is located in Rafah, in the 'Yellow Line' area which Israeli forces withdrew to as part of the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase, brokered by US president Donald Trump earlier in October.

Israeli forces control the area within the Yellow Line, which amounts to just over half of Gaza’s territory, and includes Rafah, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, among others.

The line, however, isn’t visibly marked, putting Palestinians at risk of being shot at by the Israeli military.

The Israeli newspaper Ynet, citing political sources, said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had considered the possibility of allowing the fighters to leave alive, before a political source close to the premier clarified that "no such a thing will happen".

Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist far-right Minister of Finance and opponent of the Gaza ceasefire, opposed any form of exchange, calling the idea "utter madness".

Hamas, who currently control west of the so-called Yellow Line, have been calling for the return of the trapped fighters.

The fighters are among thousands of Palestinians seeking to cross into the Hamas-controlled part of Gaza, away from the Israeli-controlled part. The Palestinian group has reportedly offered to make further efforts to locate captive bodies in the territory in exchange for their release.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire on 10 October, which saw the release of 2,000 Palestinian detainees in exchange for the remaining captives held in Gaza.

All 20 remaining living captives held by Hamas have been released, as well as 21 out of the 28 deceased ones, amid efforts to find the remaining ones.

The ceasefire’s first phase also stipulates that more aid is allowed into Gaza for the territory's starving and exhausted Palestinians, but Israel is only allowing in very limited quantities of aid.

The truce has been subject to multiple Israeli violations since, promoting fears over the likelihood of a smooth transition to the ceasefire’s second phase.