Hamas hands over remains of one more Israeli captive, vows to return rest

Palestinian radical requests assistance and dense machinery to hunt for bodies inactive trapped nether rubble aft Israeli strikes.

Hamas has handed implicit the remains of an further captive it recovered successful the ravaged Gaza Strip, arsenic the Palestinian radical urges mediators and the planetary assemblage to unit Israel to unfastened borderline crossings and allow assistance in.

The equipped helping of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said successful a connection connected Friday that its fighters handed implicit the remains astatine 11pm section clip (20:00 GMT), without elaborating connected wherever the assemblage was retrieved.

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According to the group, the remains were pulled retired earlier successful the time and were those of an “occupation prisoner”, suggesting they belonged to an Israeli alternatively than 1 of the captives of respective different nationalities besides taken by Hamas connected October 7, 2023.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bureau confirmed a abbreviated portion aboriginal that Israel had received the coffin of a captive aft it was handed implicit to the Red Cross by Hamas successful Gaza.

The coffin volition beryllium transferred to Israel’s Ministry of Health’s National Center for Forensic Medicine, wherever a ceremonial recognition process volition beryllium conducted earlier the household is informed.

The Israeli subject requested that “the nationalist enactment with sensitivity and hold for the authoritative identification”. It besides added that “Hamas is required to uphold the statement and instrumentality the indispensable steps to instrumentality each the deceased hostages”.

Hamas has said it’s committed to the presumption of the United States-mediated ceasefire deal, including the handover of captive bodies inactive unaccounted for nether Gaza’s ruins. It has repeatedly said it has returned each the bodies it was capable to recover, but needs assistance locating remaining captives trapped nether the rubble pursuing Israeli strikes.

“There are inactive 18 bodies held wrong Gaza,” said Al Jazeera’s Hamda Salhut, reporting from Amman connected Friday. “Hamas says that they’re waiting for the assistance they request successful the assistance successful the signifier of dense machinery and teams connected the ground.”

Israel is ‘not cooperating’

Former Israeli ambassador Alon Liel said the instrumentality of the bodies of the dormant captives is being treated precise emotionally successful the country, creating unit connected the government.

He said galore Israelis believed that Hamas was cheating connected the ceasefire statement by not returning each the bodies of the deceased captives. “There is simply a batch of anger,” Liel said.

In a connection earlier connected Friday, Hamas said immoderate captives’ remains were successful tunnels oregon buildings that were aboriginal destroyed by Israel, and that dense machinery was required to excavation done rubble to retrieve them. It blamed Israel for the delay, saying it had not allowed immoderate caller bulldozers into the Gaza Strip.

Most dense instrumentality successful Gaza was destroyed during the war, leaving lone a constricted fig arsenic Palestinians effort to wide monolithic amounts of rubble crossed the bombarded territory.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, said Israel is “not cooperating with countries that are lending assistance to perchance look for those remains”.

“Turkiye, for example, was acceptable to nonstop 81 experts successful the retrieval of bodies, and Israel has not allowed it to enter. It has besides not allowed it to supply instrumentality that could perchance facilitate that,” Odeh said.

On Friday, 2 bulldozers ploughed up pits successful the world arsenic Hamas searched for captives’ remains successful Hamad City, a analyzable of flat towers successful Khan Younis. Israeli forces repeatedly bombarded the towers during the war, toppling some, and troops conducted a weeklong raid determination successful March 2024.

US President Donald Trump has warned Hamas that helium would greenlight Israel to resume the warfare connected Gaza if the radical does not unrecorded up to its extremity of the woody and instrumentality each captives’ bodies, totalling 28. So acold successful the past days, Hamas handed implicit the remains of 9 captives, on with a 10th assemblage that Israel claims was not that of a captive.

The instrumentality of the 10th dormant captive connected Friday comes arsenic Gaza’s civilian defence said much than 10,000 slain Palestinians stay trapped nether debris and rubble crossed the enclave. Only 280 person truthful acold been retrieved.

Hamas has urged mediators to guarantee the accrued travel of indispensable assistance into Gaza, expedite the opening of the Rafah borderline crossing with Egypt and commencement reconstruction. Despite the ceasefire woody agreed past week, Israel has yet to let the introduction of assistance successful standard and is inactive operating successful astir fractional of the Gaza Strip, arsenic attacks proceed successful immoderate areas.