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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 Oct. 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 in Gaza
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 authorized 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.
US President 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 wrote on Truth Social.
Al-Hayya, who is also Hamas’ top negotiator, told an Egyptian media outlet last week that efforts to retrieve the bodies faced challenges because of the massive destruction, burying them deep underground.
Israeli strikes wound four in central Gaza
Israeli forces struck the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza on Saturday night, for the second time in a week, according to Awda Hospital that received the wounded.
The Israeli military claimed it targeted militants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack Israeli troops.
Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, denied it was preparing for an attack.
Hamas called the strike a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to sabotage Trump’s efforts to end the war.
It was the same area that Israel targeted in a series of strikes on Oct. 19, after the military accused Hamas militants of killing two Israeli soldiers. That day, Israel launched dozens of deadly strikes across Gaza, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, according to the strip’s health authorities. It was the most serious challenge to the fragile ceasefire.
Saturday’s strike in Nuseirat came a few hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel, the latest in a series of top US officials to visit Israel and a new center for civilian and military coordination that is attempting to oversee the ceasefire. US Vice President JD Vance was in Israel earlier this week, and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were also in Israel.
Rubio said Saturday, en route to Qatar, that Israel, the US and the other mediators of the Gaza ceasefire deal are sharing information to disrupt any threats and that allowed them to identify a possible impending attack last weekend.
Around 200 US troops are working alongside the Israeli military and delegations from other countries at the coordination center, planning the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza.