Hamas says it will hand over remains of another Israeli hostage

Hamas has announced plans to hand over the remains of an additional hostage after the militant group brought out bulldozers in Gaza to dig for remains in a bid to shore up a tenuous ceasefire with Israel.

The Hamas armed wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, did not say whose remains will be handed over – only that they were pulled out earlier in the day – or where they would be handed over.

The statement from the Qassam Brigades said the remains are of an “occupation prisoner”, suggesting they belonged to an Israeli rather than one of the hostages of several other nationalities also taken by Hamas.

Hamas has said it is committed to the terms of the ceasefire deal, including the handover of bodies.

The effort to find bodies followed a warning from US President Donald Trump that he would clear Israel to resume the war if Hamas does not live up to its end of the deal and return all 28 hostages’ bodies.

So far it has handed over the remains of nine, along with a 10th body that Israel said was not that of a hostage.

In its statement, Hamas said some hostages’ remains were in tunnels or buildings that were destroyed by Israel, and that heavy machinery is required to dig through rubble to retrieve them. It blamed Israel for the delay, saying it had not allowed any new bulldozers into the Gaza Strip.

Most heavy equipment in Gaza was destroyed during the war, leaving only a limited amount as Palestinians try to clear massive amounts of rubble.

On Friday, two bulldozers ploughed up pits in the earth as Hamas searched for hostages’ remains in Hamad City, a complex of apartment towers in the city of Khan Younis. Israeli forces repeatedly bombarded the towers during the war, toppling some, and troops conducted a week-long raid there in March 2024.

Hamas urged mediators to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, expedite the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and start reconstruction. It also called for work to “start immediately” on setting up a committee of Palestinian independents who will run the Gaza Strip and for Israeli troops to continue pulling back from agreed areas.

The ceasefire plan introduced by Mr Trump had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired on Monday. If that did not happen, Hamas was to share information about dead hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfil the requirements laid out in the ceasefire.

Hamas has assured the US that it is working to return dead hostages. American officials say retrieval of the bodies is hampered by the scope of the devastation, coupled with the presence of unexploded ordnance.

The militant group has also told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.

Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages on Monday. In exchange, Israel freed around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

In Israel, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said it will continue holding weekly rallies until all remains are returned.

Israel has also returned to Gaza the bodies of 90 Palestinians for burial. Israel is expected to turn over more bodies, though officials have not said how many are in its custody or how many will be returned.

A Palestinian forensics team examining the remains said some of the bodies showed signs of mistreatment.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in the territory. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.

In the attack on Israel on October 7 2023, militants killed around 1,200 people and took 250 hostage.

France said it is working with the UK and the US to propose a UN resolution in the coming days that would provide a framework for an international force for Gaza.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told a news conference that Arab countries want a UN mandate for the force. Arab countries are expected to be among those contributing troops to the force, which will oversee Egyptian-trained Palestinian police.

Mr Confavreux said details on funding, equipment and which countries will participate still need to be worked out.

The UN says the flow of aid remains constrained because of continued closures of crossings and restrictions on aid groups.

UN tracking of its own aid trucks into Gaza shows 339 trucks have been offloaded for distribution since the ceasefire began a week ago. Under the agreement, 600 humanitarian aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza daily.

Crossings were closed on Monday and Tuesday for the exchange of hostages and prisoners and a Jewish holiday.

Cogat, the Israeli defence body overseeing aid in Gaza, reported 950 trucks — including commercial trucks and bilateral deliveries — crossing on Thursday and 716 on Wednesday, according to the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian aid.

Tom Fletcher, who heads that office, said UN humanitarian teams are executing a 60-day plan to massively scale up aid, but he warned that the “challenges ahead are immense” and urged the opening of more crossings to allow more aid and workers into Gaza.