Hamas is trying again—but Israel is not flinching.
After the return of 20 living hostages from the horrors of Gaza, the process of handing over the bodies of the fallen has faltered. For Israel, the recovery of its dead carries sacred meaning.
It is as ancient as the story of Priam kneeling before Achilles to reclaim the body of his son Hector. For the Jewish people, restored to their homeland, returning their dead for burial among their own is not a political gesture; it is a moral and spiritual duty.
Achilles, a mythic hero, ultimately returned the son to his father. Hamas, by contrast, is no hero. It remains a terrorist organization bent on vengeance even as its own people long to celebrate the war’s end. Videos now show its men kneeling, begging for mercy that never comes. Members of the Doghmush clan—accused of rebellion—have already lost dozens of their own, tortured, beaten and executed by Hamas in recent days.
After delivering only nine of the 28 promised bodies, Hamas added insult to injury by returning the remains of an Arab man dressed in an IDF uniform. The terror group called it a “mistake,” but it was a violation nonetheless. Israel, however, did not allow itself to be provoked.
Under the agreement, Hamas was to return all hostages—living and dead—within 72 hours, in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences for murder, all of whom continue to receive monthly stipends from the Palestinian Authority. Yet many media headlines equate these convicted killers with the freed hostages, as if the two could ever be comparable.
Another two bodies were returned on Wednesday night, leaving 19 unaccounted for. Israel could easily have frozen the agreement over Hamas’s breach, but instead it has exercised restraint.
Perhaps Hamas truly cannot locate the bodies—or perhaps, more cynically, it seeks to deepen internal divisions within Israeli society or retain leverage for the disarmament talks ahead. And behind it all, Iran may again be using Hamas to inflame antisemitic rage and drag Israel into renewed confrontation.
Israel’s focus, meanwhile, is shifting toward the next phase: the surrender of Hamas’s weapons and its complete removal from Gaza. That process will once again bring U.S. President Donald Trump back to the regional stage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recent interview with CBS that Israel had decided “to give peace a chance.” Quoting Trump, he said that if Hamas doesn’t lay down its arms, “all hell breaks loose.” Trump himself declared bluntly: “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them.”
Both leaders appear determined to secure peace, but if forced to fight again, they will do so together.
Still, the metaphor endures. A scorpion is a scorpion. And even when it knows that the sting will kill it, it cannot resist striking. Hamas, cornered and exposed, may yet lash out once more—but Israel, disciplined and steadfast, will not take the bait.
