Hamas to hand over two captives’ bodies at 19:00 GMT
Hamas’s armed wing, Qassam Brigades, has announced that it will hand over two captives’ bodies tonight at 10pm local time (19:00 GMT). The group has increased efforts to recover all the bodies of the captives despite little excavating machinery to fulfil the terms of the ceasefire.
Search for missing Palestinians in Gaza ‘slow, dangerous, emotionally crushing’
Two more bodies of deceased [Israeli] captives are being handed over … This is part of an ongoing effort to locate and return the captives who were killed by the relentless Israeli bombardment across the Gaza Strip.
At this point, every handover marks an end of a search – and the beginning of another one – in a landscape [of] destruction.
It’s not just the bodies of deceased [Israeli] captives lying beneath these mountains of concrete – it’s the bodies of missing Palestinians, thousands and thousands of them.
When it comes to the search itself, it’s very difficult with recovery teams on the ground facing extraordinary challenges. [They have] no bulldozers, no trucks, no cranes and no heavy equipment … to speed up the process and help with the recovery and return of bodies.
Either [the equipment is] being deliberately prevented by the Israeli military or it’s been destroyed or damaged.
Despite efforts, Israel says Hamas not doing enough to retrieve bodies
The Israelis have known for some time that this [recovery of Israeli captives’ bodies from Gaza ruins] was going to be an incredibly difficult and daunting task.
Israeli officials who spoke anonymously to the media while the ceasefire negotiations were ongoing said that Benjamin Netanyahu knew for months that it would be difficult to locate the remains of hostages because Gaza lies in ruins.
Hamas says they need assistance in the form of heavy machinery on the ground and perhaps specialised teams to assist in the search. Nevertheless, they say they are trying to uphold their commitment to the deal.
But Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government say that what Hamas is doing is not enough, and that all of the bodies need to be returned immediately.
Until that happens, that’s when Israel is going to honour more of the commitments of the ceasefire, like letting in more humanitarian assistance, talking about opening the Rafah border crossing.
