Lotan placed responsibility on the Hamas leadership for preventing a deal to return the bodies of Lt. Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who both fell in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, along with the return of two Israeli citizens who crossed into the Gaza Strip.
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Lior Lotan, who is in charge of prisoners and missing persons, said the exchange was part of two offers turned down by Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip.
Israeli warplanes also targeted with two missiles a location east of Shujaeyya neighborhood, east of Gaza city, causing a deep hole at the scene and partial damages to neighboring homes.
The strikes were a response to a rocket fired from Gaza which hit open ground in Israel late Wednesday night – the military reported no casualties from the attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged this month to recover the body of Shaul.
Palestinian medical officials said four people were wounded during the dozens of retaliatory raids, which targeted bases of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, as well as of two smaller militant groups.
The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade for around a decade and its border with Egypt also remains largely closed.
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The projectile hit an empty field in the Eshkol region, next to the southern Gaza Strip, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces.
