By WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas moved Friday to shore up its brittle ceasefire agreement with Israel by reaffirming its commitment to the terms of the deal, including a pledge to hand over the remains of all dead Israeli hostages.
The group’s statement released in the early hours Friday follows a dire warning from U.S. President Donald Trump that he would green-light Israel to resume the war if Hamas doesn’t live up to its end of the deal and return all of the hostages’ bodies.
Hamas, however, maintains that some bodies were buried in tunnels that were later destroyed by Israel, and heavy machinery is required to dig through rubble to retrieve them.
The group also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his call to cut aid to Gaza, saying it was an attempt to manipulate humanitarian needs “for political gains.”
In a follow-up statement Friday, Hamas urged mediators to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, expedite the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and start the reconstruction process, especially for homes, hospitals and schools. It also called for work to “start immediately” on setting up a committee of independents who will run the Gaza Strip and for Israeli troops to continue pulling back from agreed-upon areas.
The ceasefire plan introduced by 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.
Netanyahu has said that Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.
Obstacles to retrieving bodies
Hamas has assured the U.S. through intermediaries that it’s working to return dead hostages. American officials say retrieval of the bodies is hampered by the scope of the devastation, coupled with the presence of dangerous, unexploded ordnance.
The group has also told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops. Hamas crews were seen Friday in Hamad City, near Khan Younis, searching for the bodies of hostages.
On Wednesday, Israel received the remains of two more hostages shortly after its military said that one of eight bodies previously handed over wasn’t that of a hostage. Israel is waiting for the bodies of 28 hostages to be returned.
Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages on Monday. In exchange, Israel freed around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Israel has also returned to Gaza the bodies of 90 Palestinians for burial. 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.
A Palestinian forensics team examining the remains said some of the bodies showed signs of mistreatment.
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 the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
France says international force for Gaza is in the pipeline
Meanwhile, France said it’s working with its ″British and American partners″ to propose a U.N. resolution in the coming days that would provide a framework for the international force for Gaza.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told a news conference Thursday that Arab countries are “very insistent” on having a U.N. mandate for this force.
″This resolution would allow a framework for the deployment of this mission, in support … of Palestinian security forces, who are in the process of evaluating what they will need and what they are capable of doing,″ he said.
He wouldn’t say whether France could eventually take part or what its role would be. ″First the mandate,″ he said, followed by which countries will be involved, and then specifics about who is providing what, which could include equipment, training, money.
Confavreux said aid, reconstruction and security efforts should be centralized within the U.N. system.
Killings in Gaza fray nerves
Hamas was also put on the defensive after Trump warned that “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them ” if the group didn’t cease killings of rival factions inside Gaza.
Trump said it won’t be U.S. forces that will mete out any punishment but “people very close, very nearby that will go in and they’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices.”
The president did not specify if he was speaking of Israel, but action by Israeli forces could risk violating terms of the ceasefire agreement.
A Hamas official Thursday defended the killings of alleged gang members that the group carried out in Gaza since Monday.
Speaking in Beirut, Hamas’ political representative in Lebanon Ahmed Abdul-Hadi said the individuals who were killed “caused death and corruption in Gaza and killed displaced persons and aid seekers.”
Hadi said the decision to sentence them to death had come from the “judiciary,” apparently referring to tribal customary judicial procedures. There are no functioning formal courts in the war-battered enclave.
“This was done by a Palestinian national and tribal consensus,” he said. “I mean, their clan agreed to this and not just Hamas.”
Wait for a large infusion of aid into Gaza goes on
The U.N. said the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza remains constrained because of continued closures of crossings and restrictions on aid groups.
According to the U.N. dashboard that monitors the movement of aid trucks into Gaza, only 339 trucks reached the territory and were offloaded for distribution since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10. Under the ceasefire agreement, 600 aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza daily.
The U.N. figures varied widely from those provided by COGAT, an Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza. A spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said COGAT had reported 950 trucks crossing on Thursday and 716 on Wednesday. Crossings were closed on Monday and Tuesday for the exchange of hostages and prisoners and for a Jewish holiday.
U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said rapid and unimpeded access, sustained fuel entry, restored infrastructure, protection of aid workers, and adequate funding are needed for the U.N.’s 60-day aid delivery plan to work.
Currently, only 15 humanitarian organizations are authorized by Israel to deliver aid into Gaza.
Gaza’s truck drivers’ association, which organizes pickups of aid from the Gaza side of the border after Israeli inspection, said there has been no significant ramping up of supplies arriving since the ceasefire. But it cited improved security that has prevented looting or gangs intercepting aid convoys.
“There is no breakthrough,” said Nahed Sheheiber, the head of Gaza’s private truckers’ union. “There is no improvement except in one thing, the security of trucks that enables them to reach the warehouses.”
Only 70 trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, Sheheiber said, adding that the wait time for truck inspections and coordination is still long.
Since the beginning of the ceasefire, at least nine humanitarian organizations have gradually resumed services in Gaza City and parts of northern Gaza for displaced families and returnees, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs report released Thursday.
Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
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