The Palestinian movement Hamas has accused the Israeli authorities of not yet handing over the bodies of 19 dead hostages to medical personnel.
The radicals claim that extracting the remains requires heavy equipment, which the Israeli authorities prohibit from entering the Gaza Strip.
„To find the remaining bodies of the prisoners, specialized equipment is needed, which is currently impossible to transport to Gaza due to the ban by the Israeli authorities. "Therefore, the responsibility for any delays in the transfer of the bodies falls entirely on the Netanyahu government," a press release posted on Hamas' Telegram channel said.
The movement noted that the remains of some hostages were "buried in destroyed tunnels" during Israel's military operation in the enclave, while the bodies of others remain under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the bombing.
On the morning of October 13, Hamas and its allies, in accordance with the Gaza peace agreement, released 20 Israeli hostages who had been held in the enclave for two years. That evening, the first four coffins containing the remains of the deceased hostages were handed over to the Israeli side through the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Israeli authorities immediately expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the radicals returned only four of the 28 bodies in the first stage of the return of the remains. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called this a deviation from the agreement and warned that further delays on the part of the radicals would have consequences.
On October 14, four more coffins were handed over to Israel, and on October 15, the remains of two more captives were returned to the Jewish state.
In total, the Israeli side received ten coffins with remains in three days. Forensic experts identified nine deceased Israeli hostages; their names were published and the bodies were handed over to their families for burial.
On October 15, the Israeli army press service reported that officials from Israel's National Institute of Forensic Medicine had been unable to identify one of the bodies recovered from the Gaza Strip the previous day. Hamas claims that these remains belong to a soldier whose body was abducted by radicals in May 2024 during fighting in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
The United States will not participate directly in military operations against the radical Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip; this will be taken up by regional players.
This position was stated by US President Donald Trump.
“Someone will come to us, but it will not be us“, he said during a meeting with reporters at the White House, discussing possible military action against Hamas. “There are people there, very close by, who could do it very easily.“
At the same time, he indicated that such steps would be carried out “under the auspices“ of the United States. Earlier, on October 16, he accused Hamas of killing people in Gaza and threatened to take new decisive measures against the radical movement.
On October 6, delegations from Israel and Hamas resumed indirect talks to resolve the conflict in the Gaza Strip, with the mediation of Egypt, Qatar, the United States and Turkey. On October 9, the parties to the conflict signed an agreement to implement the first phase of the peace plan presented earlier by Trump. The ceasefire agreement in the enclave came into effect on October 10.