Ya'alon: Reconciliation agreement with Turkey must include return of soldiers’ bodies from Gaza

Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon is demanding that any reconciliation agreement with Turkey include the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers currently held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to a senior Israeli official.

A leading Israeli newspaper reported a senior Israeli official saying that Ya’alon’s hardline stance has contributed significantly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hesitation about signing the reconciliation agreement.

The newspaper said that this condition was proposed during internal discussions regarding the potential normalisation of relations between the two countries.

During the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza, Hamas military wing Al-Qassam Brigades announced that it had captured two Israeli soldiers.

Al-Qassam did not reveal whether the soldiers were dead or alive but Israel claims that they were killed in the battlefield.