Hamas returns bodies of two more captives, says Israel violating ceasefire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Hamas would turn over the remains of two more Israeli captives who had passed away in Gaza, as the Palestinian group claimed that Israel is still violating the ceasefire and disobeying its obligations to peace mediators.

The Israeli government’s office stated in a post on the X social media platform early on Sunday that “Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the bodies of two hostages” and that they had returned to Israeli security forces in Gaza.

No names have been made public about the return of the remains, despite the prime minister’s office’s statement that the families of the Israeli prisoners have received updates on the situation.

The Israeli National Center of Forensic Medicine is where the two bodies are currently being transferred, according to the office, and “formal notification will be sent to the families once the identification process is complete.”

The prime minister’s office added that “the effort to return our hostages is ongoing and won’t end until the last hostage is returned.”

In response to the handover, Hamas has now fulfilled one of the 28 captives’ demands set by Israel in the two-year ceasefire agreement, which was signed late on Saturday.

Within 72 hours of the signing of the agreement, Hamas was supposed to release all of the Israeli prisoners, including the living and the dead. Israel was ordered to release some 2, 000 prisoners and 360 bodies of deceased Palestinians in exchange.

The recovery of the bodies of dead captives has been hampered by Hamas’ claim that the Palestinian territory’s widespread devastation and the Israeli military’s continued occupation of some areas of Gaza have caused.

Hani Mahmoud, a journalist for Al Jazeera from Gaza City, reported that the Palestinian authorities lack the necessary tools to search for the bodies of the captives beneath the rubble of the destroyed buildings.

“The recovery teams on the ground are facing extraordinary challenges,” says the author. To speed up the recovery and return of bodies, they don’t have any bulldozers, trucks, cranes, or other heavy equipment, according to Mahmoud.

Because Al Jazeera is prohibited from Israel and the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, who is reporting from Amman, Jordan, claimed Netanyahu’s government has known for “some time” that recovering captives’ bodies would be “an incredibly difficult and daunting task.”

However, Netanyahu has claimed that Hamas is failing to return all of the bodies and that all bodies must be returned right away, Salhut said.

She said, “Until that happens, Israel will honor more of the commitments of the ceasefire, like allowing for more humanitarian aid, talking about opening the Rafah border crossing,” and that is when.

Hamas and Israel have exchanged accusations of violating the US-mediated ceasefire for days.

Hamas criticized Israel’s refusal to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt as “a blatant violation” of the agreement and accused the Netanyahu government of “fabricating flimsy pretexts” for failing to fulfill its commitments to the peace deal on Saturday.

In an attack east of Gaza City on Friday, Israeli forces attacked 11 members of a single family, including seven children.

The main entryway into and out of Gaza’s Rafah crossing, which is the main gateway for people there, will reopen on Monday, according to the Egyptian Embassy’s announcement from earlier on Saturday.

Netanyahu, however, stated that the border crossing would remain closed pending Hamas’ request to turn over all of the Israeli prisoners’ bodies.

Despite the ceasefire agreement, humanitarian aid continues to flow slowly into Gaza.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, announced on Saturday that it had received enough humanitarian food to provide three months of food for Gaza. However, trucks carrying the vital cargo are stranded in Jordanian and Egyptian warehouses and are unable to enter Gaza.

Source: Aljazeera