Israeli Bulldozer Wrests martyr Body “Muhammad Al-Naem” From Palestinians on the Gaza-Israel border

A macabre tug-of-war over the body of a Palestinian martyr on the Gaza-Israel border — captured Sunday on video in broad daylight — left another man wounded, prompted a round of rockets from Gaza and drew harsh criticism from fellow Israelis.

Israel’s hawkish defense minister, Naftali Bennett, defended the army’s brutal seizure of the body as appropriate, suggesting it could be used as a bargaining chip to recover the remains of two Israeli soldiers who have been held in Gaza since 2014.

The clash occurred around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Israel said, when its soldiers spotted two Palestinian near the border east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Israel later released a surveillance video that it said showed the two men approaching the fence, and a photo of the martyr.

According to a rival lawmaker, Avigdor Liberman, Mr. Netanyahu even sent the chief of the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, and a top general to Qatar to implore Qatari leaders to continue cash infusions to Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, to help keep the peace.

On Sunday, Israeli forces fired an antitank weapon at the two militants. One was killed, the other wounded, Gaza officials said. Palestinian Islamic Jihad identified the dead man as Muhammad Al-Naem, 27, a member of its military wing.

Soldiers had to be sure the dead man had not been wearing a suicide vest or carrying other explosives, the spokesman said, so Israel sent an armored bulldozer to collect the man’s body.

But a crowd of Palestinian onlookers rushed forward to try to recover the body, and rather than retreat, the bulldozer kept at its task. Israeli soldiers shot at the Palestinians, wounding at least one.

While that man was carried off with a leg injury, the Israeli bulldozer repeatedly scraped at the earth, trying to catch the dead man’s body in the teeth of its scoop. When it had done so and turned back toward Israel, its retreat covered by a tank, the body could be seen dangling.

The gruesome images prompted Palestinian Islamic Jihad to vow revenge, and just after 5:30 p.m., sirens sounded in southern Israel as about 20 rockets were fired into Israeli territory. No injuries were immediately reported.

The bulldozer episode drew harsh criticism even within Israel. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a letter to the Israeli chief military advocate general demanding a criminal investigation. It called the bulldozer’s rough handling of the body a war crime and a “blatant” violation of international criminal law, human rights and humanitarian law.

Yariv Oppenheimer, a former director of the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, called the bulldozer’s work “shameful and shocking,” adding, “All the atrocities and crimes we do will be in vain, boomerang.”

And Ofer Cassif, a Jewish lawmaker from the predominantly Arab Joint List, called the “abduction” of the body “an act of vampirism and of nauseating blood thirst.”

“This is what Netanyahu and Bennett have to offer: siege, killing and the abduction of bodies,” he wrote on Twitter. “We must put an end to their death festivities.’‘

Mr. Bennett, a right-wing lawmaker who was named defense minister in November, responded on Twitter that he was “tired of the hypocritical criticism of the left against the ‘inhumanity’ of using the bulldozer to bring us the body of a terrorist who tried to murder (!) Israelis.”

Rather, he said, it was the liberals who were inhumane. “Hamas holds the bodies of Hadar and Oron,” he wrote. “I back up the army that killed the terrorists and collected the body. That is how it should be done. Against terrorists we will act with force.”

But Elior Levy, a Ynet reporter who covers Palestinian affairs, assailed what he called Mr. Bennett’s “glorification of grabbing a tattered body of a wretched terrorist.” Pointing to the rockets, he added: “What do you think, Minister of Defense? Was it worth it?”