Hamas says committed to Gaza truce and returning hostage remains

Hamas insisted it was committed to returning each the hostage remains inactive unaccounted for nether Gaza’s ruins, arsenic a Turkish authoritative said specialists dispatched to assistance find bodies were awaiting Israel’s authorisation to enter.

Responding to a telephone from Hamas for assistance locating the bodies of the 19 hostages, buried nether the rubble alongside an untold fig of Palestinians, Ankara sent specialists to assistance successful the search.

A Turkish authoritative told AFP connected Friday that dozens of catastrophe effect specialists were astatine the Egyptian broadside of the borderline awaiting a greenish airy from the Israeli authorities to participate the war-shattered Palestinian territory.

The 81-member squad from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) is equipped with specialised search-and-rescue tools, including life-detection devices and trained hunt dogs.

“It remains unclear erstwhile Israel volition let the Turkish squad to participate Gaza,” the authoritative said.

Under a ceasefire statement betwixt Israel and Hamas spearheaded by US President Donald Trump, Hamas returned 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 9 of 28 known deceased hostages — on with different body, which Israel said was not that of a erstwhile hostage.

In exchange, Israel freed astir 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails and halted the subject run that it launched successful Gaza aft Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.

A Hamas root told AFP the Turkish delegation is expected to participate Gaza by Sunday.

The Turkish authoritative noted that the betterment team’s analyzable ngo included locating some Palestinian and hostage bodies.

– ‘May necessitate immoderate time’ –

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed connected Thursday his determination to “secure the instrumentality of each hostages” aft his defence curate warned that the subject would restart the struggle if Hamas failed to bash so.

Hamas aboriginal insisted connected “its committedness to the statement and its implementation, including its keenness to manus implicit each remaining corpses”.

But it said the process “may necessitate immoderate time, arsenic immoderate of these corpses were buried successful tunnels destroyed by the occupation, portion others stay nether the rubble of buildings it bombed and demolished”.

The families of the dormant person fumed astatine Hamas’s inability to present their loved ones’ remains.

The main run radical advocating for the hostages’ families has demanded that Israel “immediately halt the implementation of immoderate further stages of the statement arsenic agelong arsenic Hamas continues to blatantly interruption its obligations”.

Trump appeared connected Wednesday to telephone for patience erstwhile it came to the bodies’ return, insisting Hamas was “actually digging” for hostages’ remains.

The ceasefire woody has truthful acold seen the warfare grind to a halt aft 2 years of agony for the hostages’ families, and changeless bombardment and hunger for Gazans.

The UN’s World Food Programme said connected Friday it had been capable to determination adjacent to 3,000 tonnes of nutrient supplies into Gaza since the ceasefire took hold.

But it cautioned it would instrumentality clip to reverse the famine successful the Gaza Strip, saying each crossings needed to beryllium opened to “flood Gaza with food”.

Trump’s 20-point program for Gaza calls for renewed assistance provision, with planetary organisations eagerly awaiting the reopening of confederate Gaza’s strategical Rafah crossing.

The adjacent phases of the truce should besides see the disarmament of Hamas, the connection of amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons and establishing the governance of post-war Gaza.

– ‘Better than surviving connected street’ –

The families of the surviving hostages person been capable to rejoice successful their instrumentality aft 2 agelong years. Others person had to endure the agony of burying the returned remains of their loved ones.

Mourners clutching Israeli flags lined the streets successful Rishon Lezion connected Friday for the ceremonial convoy of Inbar Hayman, whose assemblage was returned connected Wednesday.

For galore successful Gaza, portion determination was alleviation that the bombing had stopped, the roadworthy to betterment felt intolerable arsenic radical began clearing the rubble from their destroyed homes.

“I’m close nether the menace of death. It could illness astatine immoderate moment,” said Ahmad Saleh Sbeih, a...