Israel is working on alternative options if Hamas does not comply with demands to return the remains of hostages still in Gaza, security establishment insiders say.
Israeli soldiers enter Gaza at the border as seen from Israel, October 3, 2025(photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)ByAMIR BOHBOTUpdated: Israel is working on five options in case Hamas fails to deliver on returning the hostage remains, insiders within the Israeli security establishment said on Monday.
In no specific order, the options being explored are extending operational control, targeted escalation, hostage-remains-retrieval operations, diplomatic pressure, and ending existing agreements.
Extending operational controlFollowing the policies outlined by Defense Minister Israel Katz, the IDF has been active along the border, targeting and destroying Hamas infrastructure, including terror tunnels.
Targeted escalationThe second option would involve further escalation of Israel’s military efforts within Gaza, targeting Hamas operatives and field commanders. The IDF has already demonstrated this approach by striking a vehicle carrying Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives preparing for an attack.
Palestinians seen carrying out Hamas-controlled excavations in search for remains of slain hostages in the Gaza Strip, October 27, 2025 (credit: TPS-IL)
More aggressive steps could include a return to targeted killings of senior Hamas leadership, who no longer have human shields.
Hostage remains retrieval operations
A third option would be to utilize Israeli intelligence for retrieving the remains, employing air, ground, and land maneuvers. Although such an operation would carry a high risk for IDF personnel and could cause environmental damage, it remains a viable option to pressure Hamas.
Diplomatic pressureAnother option Israel may employ is diplomatic pressure, particularly leveraging the US to apply influence on mediators such as Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, urging them to ensure the return of all hostages.
Such measures would set the stage for Israel to shift to Phase II, including closing border crossings and reducing humanitarian aid and energy supplies to Gaza.
Termination of existing agreements
The fifth option involves the cancellation of all agreements and understandings with Hamas, effectively leading to a resumption of intense fighting across Gaza. While this is not currently seen as a favorable option, it remains a theoretical response should all else fail.
Gunmen stand guard at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, February 7, 2025. (credit: AGUSTIN MARCARIAN/REUTERS)
Hamas using hostages as bargaining chips?
There are increasing concerns within Israeli circles that Hamas may be using the remains of the fallen as “bargaining chips” and actively misleading Red Cross teams. Israel is contemplating several strategies in coordination with the US to ramp up pressure on Hamas.
Hamas is believed to be well aware of the locations where the remains are buried, while sending Red Cross teams and Egyptian officials to areas unrelated to the real burial sites.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that Hamas is operating near the IDF’s border, close to the Yellow Line, complicating the Israeli military’s ability to respond to suspicious movements. In some instances, the IDF has even adjusted its positioning.
Police’s Yamam counter-terror unit acts on intelligence provided by Shin Bet; military carries out rare airstrike against cave in Kafr Qud, from which the operatives had emerged
An Israeli airstrike is seen in the West Bank village of Kafr Qud, October 28, 2025. (Screenshot: X)
Officers of the Yamam counter-terrorism unit and an Israeli military airstrike killed three Palestinian terror operatives during a raid in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qud, near Jenin, on Tuesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police said.
Police said that the Yamam officers operated in the village to thwart a terror cell that was planning to carry out an attack. They acted on intelligence provided by the Shin Bet, police added, and had IDF support.
According to police, Yamam snipers opened fire and killed the three operatives who had emerged from a cave in the village.
The IDF, however, said that the Yamam snipers killed two of the operatives and wounded the third.
A short while after that, the Israeli Air Force carried out an airstrike that targeted the cave from which the operatives had emerged, killing the third gunman, the IDF said.
Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank — using drones, attack helicopters, and fighter jets — had been a common occurrence in recent years, with more than 100 carried out between the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, and early 2025.
However, after a major military offensive against terror operatives was launched in the northern West Bank in January 2025, such airstrikes have become increasingly rare.
Since the start of that offensive, the IDF has remained deployed to the Jenin refugee camp, adjacent to the city of Jenin, and two refugee camps near the western border of the West Bank, Tulkarem and Nur Shams. Both are near the city of Tulkarem.
Residents of the camps have since been displaced and have not been allowed to return.
Illustrative: An Israeli military armored bulldozer is pictured along a partially demolished road during an army operation in the Palestinian refugee camps in Tulkarem in the northwest of the West Bank on April 16, 2025. (Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the camps were hotbeds of terror, funded and armed by Iran, to act as another front against Israel. With the IDF deployed to the camps, “the scope of terror alerts in Judea and Samaria has dropped by 80 percent,” Katz said in August, using the government’s term for the West Bank.
Since the start of the Gaza war with the Hamas-led October 7 attack, troops have arrested over 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas, according to the IDF.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, over 1,000 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 62 others, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Heavy machinery amid an operation to recover the body of a hostage in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City on October 27, 2025 (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
The body that Hamas returned to Israel last night may not belong to any of the hostages, according to new assessments after hours of identification efforts at the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv.
Officials have said that the identification process could take up to two days, though the vast majority of bodies returned by Hamas or recovered in Gaza have been identified within hours.
As of this morning, the body Hamas returned last night has not been identified, and authorities increasingly suspect it may not belong to any of the 13 dead hostages whose bodies are still held in the Strip.
