Hamas expands search for the remains of hostages in Gaza

CAIRO — Hamas has expanded its search for bodies of hostages in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian group said Sunday, a day after Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help retrieve them.

Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, which took effect Oct. 10, Hamas is expected to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel has agreed to return 15 bodies of Palestinians for each one.

Children and others watched the Egyptian equipment claw through the sand near badly damaged buildings in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Hamas has returned the remains of 15 hostages but hasn’t handed over any in five days. Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians, many of them unidentified.

More complicated steps lie ahead under the ceasefire plan, including the disarming of Hamas and the postwar governance of famine-stricken Gaza, where the United Nations and partners continue to urge Israel to allow in more humanitarian aid.

International news reporters have been barred from Gaza aside from brief visits with Israel’s military, and Israel said Sunday that hadn’t changed.

Challenges cited in finding bodies

Hamas’ chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, said the group started searching new areas for bodies of the remaining 13 hostages, according to comments the group shared Sunday.

President Trump warned Saturday he was “watching very closely” to ensure Hamas returns more bodies in the next 48 hours. “Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not,” he wrote on social media.

Hamas has repeatedly said efforts to retrieve remains face challenges because of the massive destruction.

An Egyptian team with equipment including an excavator and bulldozers entered Gaza on Saturday as part of mediators’ efforts to shore up the ceasefire, two Egyptian officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

More Israeli strikes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the military’s actions after Israeli forces struck the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza late Saturday, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the wounded.

The military said it targeted militants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack troops. Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, denied the allegation.

Hamas called the strike a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and accused Netanyahu of attempting to sabotage U.S. efforts to end the war.

“Of course, we also thwart dangers as they are being formed, before they are carried out, as we did just yesterday in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.

Netanyahu also stressed that Israel remained in charge of its own security, after accusations last week that the Trump administration was dictating terms of Israel’s response to security concerns in Gaza. Vice President JD Vance denied that assertion during his visit.

Israel also targeted Nuseirat on Oct. 19, after the military accused Hamas militants of killing two soldiers. Israel that day launched dozens of strikes across Gaza, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, according to local health authorities. It was the most serious breach in the ceasefire.

More than 68,500 Palestinians have died in two years of war sparked by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Information-sharing on security threats

Saturday’s strike came hours after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel. He was the latest top U.S. official to visit a new center for civilian and military coordination that is attempting to oversee the ceasefire. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, visited last week.

Rubio said Saturday that Israel, the U.S. and the other mediators are sharing information to disrupt any threats, and asserted that it allowed them to identify a possible impending attack last weekend.

Around 200 U.S. troops are working alongside the Israeli military and delegations from other countries at the coordination center, planning the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza. The U.S. has said none of its troops will operate on the ground in Gaza.

Magdy and Lidman write for the Associated Press and reported from Cairo and Tel Aviv, respectively.