Jerusalem, 19 October, 2025 (TPS-IL) — Israeli officials across the political spectrum called for resuming fighting against Hamas after the terror group violated the ceasefire with an attack on soldiers in Rafah on Sunday.
In what may have been an attempt to abduct soldiers, Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israel Defense Forces engineering vehicle, triggering Israeli airstrikes.
Officials in Jerusalem demanded a hard response. Yair Golan, chairman of the opposition Democrats Party, tweeted that “Hamas’s attack in Gaza requires a decisive response. Only in this way are the rules of the game set.” He added that “a complete victory in the Gaza Strip requires building a moderate alternative to Hamas rule — an issue the government has neglected, choosing total failure.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order an immediate return to major combat operations.
“I call on the prime minister to order the IDF to renew full-scale fighting in the Strip at full strength,” Ben-Gvir, leader of the right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, tweeted. “The false belief that Hamas will change its ways, or will even abide by the agreement it signed, is proving, unsurprisingly, to be dangerous to our security.”
He went on to describe Hamas as a “Nazi terrorist organization” that “must be destroyed completely and the sooner the better.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — an outspoken critic of the ceasefire who voted against the deal — wrote a one-word post on X: “War!”
Avigdor Liberman, head of the right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, framed the response as a test of strength: “In the Middle East, there is only one language — power. A true Iron Wall policy. Zero cracks, zero tolerance,” he wrote, accusing Hamas of “testing the limits” and of “playing games and dragging out the return of the fallen hostages.”
Voices from the center-right made similar warnings. The Reservists Party, recently formed by Yoaz Hendel, said Israel must abandon what it called “outmoded concepts” about a smaller army and misplaced faith in deterrence. “If they do not disarm — we will fight and dismantle them. If they do not return the fallen — we will enter and retrieve them ourselves. If they violate the ceasefire? We will resume fighting,” the party declared.
Earlier on Sunday, the remains of two hostages returned overnight were identified as Ronen Engel and Thai laborer sonthaya oakkharasri.
Engel, 54, was killed by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, while defending his family. His wife, Karina, and daughters Mika and Yuval were kidnapped and later released during the November ceasefire deal. In December 2023, the IDF confirmed that Ronen had been killed and that his body remained in Gaza.
Oakkharasri was abducted from the orchards of Kibbutz Be’eri, where he worked, and was subsequently murdered by Hamas. Israel declared the 30-year-old Oakkharasri dead based on intelligence in May 2024. He is survived by a seven-year-old daughter.
Also on Sunday, Israel held a farewell ceremony for Bipin Joshi at Ben-Gurion Airport before his body was flown home to Nepal. Joshi, 23, was taken hostage from Kibbutz Alumim and killed in Gaza.
Around 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken captive by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. The bodies of 16 more hostages remain in Gaza.
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