President Trump said Wednesday that Israel can resume military action in Gaza if Hamas does not abide by the terms of the ceasefire deal all sides agreed to in Egypt this week.
“What’s going on with Hamas — that’ll be straightened out quickly,” the president said, telling CNN in a telephone call that Israeli forces could return to the streets “as soon as I say the word.”
The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas is not that of a hostage who was held in Gaza, adding to tensions over the fragile truce that has paused the two-year war.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry said it received 45 more bodies of Palestinians from Israel, another step in implementation of the ceasefire agreement. That brings to 90 the total number of bodies returned to Gaza for burial. The forensics team examining the remains said they showed signs of mistreatment.
As part of the deal, four bodies of hostages were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday, following four on Monday that were returned hours after the last 20 living hostages were released from Gaza. In all, Israel has been awaiting the return of the bodies of 28 hostages.
The Israeli military said forensic testing showed that “the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages.” There was no immediate word on whose body it was.
In exchange for the release of the hostages, Israel freed around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees Monday.
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. It is unclear whether the remains belong to Palestinians who died in Israeli custody or were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops. Throughout the war, Israel’s military has exhumed bodies as part of its search for the remains of hostages.
As forensic teams examined the first remains returned, the Health Ministry on Wednesday released images of 32 unidentified bodies to help families recognize missing relatives.
Many appeared decomposed or burned. Some were missing limbs or teeth, while others were coated in sand and dust. Health officials have said Israeli restrictions on allowing DNA testing equipment into Gaza have often forced morgues to rely on physical features and clothing for identification.
The forensics team that received the bodies said some arrived still shackled or bearing signs of physical abuse.
Sameh Hamad, a member of a commission tasked with receiving the bodies at Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, said some arrived with their hands and legs cuffed.
“There are signs of torture and executions,” he told The Associated Press.
The bodies, he said, belonged to men ages 25 to 70. Most had bands on their necks, including one that had a rope around the neck.
Most of the bodies wore civilian clothing, but some were in uniforms, suggesting they were militants.
Mr. Hamad said the Red Cross provided names for only three of the dead, leaving many families uncertain of their relatives’ fate. The fighting has killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.
“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
The ceasefire plan introduced by Mr. Trump had called for all hostages — living and dead - to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.
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