Israel vows ‘to settle the score’ with Hamas after hostage deaths

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to “settle the score” with Hamas after the military had recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Gaza tunnel.

“Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement” for a Gaza truce, Netanyahu said in a statement, telling Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.

Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier on Sunday near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

“We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. Just this morning, he murdered three policemen in Hebron,” he said, referring to Hamas.

“The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so.”

Hamas has not claimed the attack in the West Bank, but in a statement, it called it a “heroic operation by the resistance.”

Three police officers, two men and a woman, were killed early Sunday in a shooting attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron, police said.

The Israeli military said the attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint.

“Security forces have begun to search for the terrorists,” it said in a statement.