Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared Sunday to close the door on a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, saying that anyone who "murders hostages does not want a deal."
In a video statement posted on social media after Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Netanyahu vowed vengeance on Hamas, in a translation reported by the Times of Israel.
"I say to the Hamas terrorists who murdered our abductees and I say to their leaders: Your lives are now forfeit," he said in Hebrew.
מי שרוצח את חטופינו - לא רוצה עסקה.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 1, 2024
מי שרצח את חטופינו - דמו בראשו. נרדוף ונשיג אותו ונבוא איתו חשבון. pic.twitter.com/pu8FCgsd3Z
Netanyahu also said that "while Israel is conducting intensive negotiations with the mediators in a supreme effort to reach a deal, Hamas continues to firmly refuse any offer."
"Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal," he declared, according to the Associated Press.
A Hamas official claimed that the hostages, including an Israeli-American, were killed by Israeli "fire and bombing," an assertion denied by the Israeli military, according to Al Arabiya.
Autopsies of the hostages showed that all had gunshot wounds to their heads and bodies and that they were killed no more than 48 hours before being were found, the Israeli Ynet news website said, without citing the source of the information.
Israeli military officials said the hostages appeared to have been killed shortly before their bodies were discovered.
Calls mounted in Israel for a nationwide general strike to protest Netanyahu's failure to strike a deal with Hamas to return the remaining hostages it had kidnapped during the surprise October 7 attacks that sparked the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the Times of Israel said.
