According to an Israeli government spokesperson, international teams searching for the hostages’ bodies have been allowed to cross Israel’s military border into Gaza.
Hamas says it has expanded its search for the hostages’ bodies in Loopa day after a team of Egyptian experts arrived to help recover them.
The team is working with the Red Cross during the search.
“Israel is aware that Hamas knows where our deceased hostages are, in fact, located. If Hamas made a greater effort,
“They could recover the remains of our hostages,” the government spokesman said Sunday.
Equipment using excavators in Khan Younis. Photo: AP
Photo: AP
The military border, often called the “yellow line”, is a border for Israel Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops in Gaza, established by the ceasefire agreement.
The fragile US-brokered ceasefire depends on Hamas returning all remains of Israeli hostages as soon as possible, but no bodies have been released in the past five days.
Read more: Revealed: The plan for a ‘New Gaza’
On Saturday, the Egyptian team arrived with an excavator and bulldozers to help search for bodies, as part of efforts by international mediators to ensure the ceasefire holds.
The bodies of 13 hostages remain in Gaza, and Hamas chief Khalil al Hayya said the group began searching new areas on Sunday morning.
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Israel backs armed groups despite Gaza ceasefire
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel agreed to return 15 Palestinian bodies for every hostage body.
Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians, while Hamas has returned 15 hostage bodies.
US President Donald Trump warned that he is “watching very closely” to ensure that Hamas returns more bodies.
“Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others can come back now and for some reason they don’t,” he wrote in Truth Social.
“Let’s see what they do in the next 48 hours. I’m following this very closely,” he said in his Saturday post.
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Vance: “I am optimistic that the ceasefire will hold”
Last week, Hayya told an Egyptian media outlet that efforts to recover the bodies faced challenges due to massive destruction, burying them at great depths.
On Saturday night, Israeli forces attacked the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza for the second time in a week, according to Awda Hospital.
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Sky News reports from inside a Gaza City suburb
The IDF claimed they were attacking militants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack Israeli troops.
Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest militant group, denied it was preparing for an attack.
Hamas called the attack a “clear violation” of the ceasefire and accused Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to sabotage President Trump’s efforts to end the war.
Saturday’s attack came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel.
He was the latest in a series of White House officials to visit Israel and visit a new civil-military coordination center trying to oversee the ceasefire.
US Vice President JD Vance was in Israel earlier this week, as were US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.