UPDATES WITH GROUP RECOVERING BODIES OF 2 MORE HOSTAGES
By Mohammad Sio and Rania Abu Shamala
ISTANBUL (AA) - The Palestinian group Hamas said Tuesday that the planned handover of the body of an Israeli captive will be postponed due to Israel’s ceasefire violations.
“Any Israeli escalation will hinder search and excavation operations and the retrieval of bodies, which will delay the return of the occupiers’ dead,” the group’s armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, warned in a statement.
Hamas had planned to transfer the remains of an Israeli captive at 8 pm local time (1800GMT) under the ceasefire deal.
Al-Qassam said late Tuesday that they had recovered the bodies of two Israeli captives during search operations carried out earlier in the day.
In a post on Telegram, the group said it had retrieved the bodies of Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch.
Al-Qassam did not provide further details about the captives, and Israel has not commented on the report.
Israel, in airstrikes since Tuesday evening, killed 18 Palestinians and wounded others, including women and children, in yet another violation of the ceasefire agreement, claiming the attacks targeted militants who had opened fire on its soldiers in Rafah.
So far, Hamas has released 20 Israeli captives alive and handed over the bodies of 17 out of 28 captives, most of them Israelis, as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal. However, Tel Aviv claimed that one of the bodies did not belong to any of its captives.
The ceasefire agreement has been in place in Gaza since Oct. 10 under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.
Phase one of the deal includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.
Israel has killed more than 68,500 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 170,000 others in attacks in Gaza since October 2023.