Israel strikes Gaza, claims returned bodies ‘not of prisoners’

GAZA: Israel claimed that three bodies it received from Gaza the night before were not prisoners held in the Palestinian territory, as a Hamas security source reported fresh strikes in the south.

Despite occasional flare-ups, a fragile truce has been holding in Gaza since Oct 10, based on a US-brokered deal centred on the return of all Israeli prisoners, both living and dead.

Israel’s military told the media that a forensic analysis revealed that three bodies it received via the Red Cross on Friday were not those of any of the deceased captives still to be handed over as part of the ceasefire deal.

Hamas’s armed wing said that it had handed over bodies it had not positively identified, saying that Israel had declined its offer to provide samples for testing and “demanded the bodies for examination”.

“We handed them over to pre-empt any enemy claims,” the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said.

After the start of the truce, Hamas returned the 20 surviving prisoners still in its custody and began the process of returning the remains of the dead.

Of the 17 bodies returned since the start of the ceasefire, 15 were Israelis, one was Thai and one was Nepalese.

Israel has accused Hamas of not returning the dead prisoners quickly enough, but the Palestinian group says it will take time to locate remains buried in Gaza’s ruins.

In its statement on Saturday, the Al-Qassam Brigades called on mediators and the Red Cross to provide the “necessary equipment and personnel to work on recovering all the bodies simultaneously”. Hamas and Israel, meanwhile, have traded accusations of breaking the ceasefire. A Hamas security source told the media that Israel had carried out several air strikes in the south at dawn, and that “warships opened fire towards the shores of Khan Yunis”. Monitoring Desk