Cairo: Hamas expanded its search for the bodies of hostages in new areas in the Gaza Strip Sunday, the Palestinian group said, a day after Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help retrieve the bodies.
Under the fragile US-brokered ceasefire, reached on October 10, Hamas is expected to return all of the remains Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel agreed to give back 15 bodies of Palestinians for every body of a hostage. Thus far, Israel has sent back the bodies of 195 Palestinians. Hamas has since returned 18 bodies of hostages, but in the past five days, failed to release any.
An Egyptian team and heavy equipment, including an excavator and bulldozers, entered Gaza Saturday to help search for the hostages’ bodies, part of efforts by international mediators to shore up the ceasefire, two Egyptian officials said, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.
Hamas’ chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, said the Palestinian group started searching in new areas for 13 bodies of hostages that remain in the enclave, according to comments shared by the group early Sunday.
Donald Trump warned Saturday that he was “watching very closely” to ensure Hamas returns more bodies within the next 48 hours. “Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not,” he said.