DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Hamas 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.<\/p>\n
The militant group\u2019s statement released in the early hours Friday follows a dire warning from President Trump that he would green-light Israel to resume the war if Hamas doesn\u2019t live up to its end of the deal and return all of the hostages\u2019 bodies. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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 \u201cfor political gains.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 steps to bring to justice \u201cthose who committed war crimes\u201d against Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The ceasefire plan introduced by Trump had called for all hostages \u2014 living and dead \u2014 to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn\u2019t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu has said that Israel \u201cwill not compromise\u201d and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages\u2019 bodies.<\/p>\n
Obstacles to retrieving bodies<\/p>\n
Hamas has assured the U.S. through intermediaries that it\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
The militant group has also told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Israel received the remains of two more hostages shortly after its military said that one of eight bodies previously handed over wasn\u2019t that of a hostage. Israel is waiting for the bodies of 28 hostages to be returned. <\/p>\n
Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages on Monday. In exchange, Israel freed around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s military has exhumed bodies as part of its search for the remains of hostages. <\/p>\n
A Palestinian forensics team examining the remains said some of the bodies showed signs of mistreatment.<\/p>\n
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
France says international force for Gaza is in the pipeline<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, France said it\u2019s working with its \u2033British and American partners\u2033 to propose a U.N. resolution in the coming days that would provide a framework for the international force for Gaza.<\/p>\n
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told a news conference Thursday that Arab countries are \u201cvery insistent\u201d on having a U.N. mandate for this force.<\/p>\n
\u2033This 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,\u2033 he said.<\/p>\n
He wouldn\u2019t say whether France could eventually take part or what its role would be. \u2033First the mandate,\u2033 he said, followed by which countries will be involved, and then specifics about who is providing what, which could include equipment, training and money.<\/p>\n
Confavreux said aid, reconstruction and security efforts should be centralized within the U.N. system.<\/p>\n
Killings in Gaza fray nerves<\/p>\n
Hamas was also put on the defensive after Trump warned that \u201cwe will have no choice but to go in and kill them\u201d if the militant group didn\u2019t cease killings of rival factions inside Gaza.<\/p>\n
Trump said it won\u2019t be U.S. forces that will mete out any punishment but \u201cpeople very close, very nearby that will go in and they\u2019ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president did not specify if he was speaking of Israel, but action by Israeli forces could risk violating terms of the ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n
A Hamas official Thursday defended the killings of alleged gang members that the militant group carried out in Gaza since Monday.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Beirut, Hamas\u2019 political representative in Lebanon Ahmed Abdul-Hadi said the individuals who were killed \u201ccaused death and corruption in Gaza and killed displaced persons and aid seekers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hadi said the decision to sentence them to death had come from the \u201cjudiciary,\u201d apparently referring to tribal customary judicial procedures. There are no functioning formal courts in the war-battered enclave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was done by a Palestinian national and tribal consensus,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, their clan agreed to this and not just Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wait goes on for a large infusion of aid into Gaza<\/p>\n
The U.N. said the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza remains constrained because of continued closures of crossings and restrictions on aid groups.<\/p>\n
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 Oct. 10.<\/p>\n
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.\u2019s 60-day aid delivery plan to work. <\/p>\n
Currently, only 15 humanitarian organizations are authorized by Israel to deliver aid into Gaza.<\/p>\n
Gaza\u2019s truck drivers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no breakthrough,\u201d said Nahed Sheheiber, the head of Gaza\u2019s private truckers\u2019 union. \u201cThere is no improvement except in one thing, the security of trucks that enables them to reach the warehouses.\u201d <\/p>\n
Only 70 trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, Sheheiber said, adding that the wait time for truck inspections and coordination is still long. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Shurafa writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Hamas moved Friday to shore up its brittle ceasefire agreement with Israel by reaffirming…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":311237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31237,157117,4637,157116,1403,157120,70,4527,6384,99,157118,9548,50,5996,10284,157119],"class_list":{"0":"post-311236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aid","9":"tag-aid-truck","10":"tag-body","11":"tag-ceasefire-plan","12":"tag-commitment","13":"tag-dead-israeli-hostage","14":"tag-gaza","15":"tag-hamas","16":"tag-hostage","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-militant-group","19":"tag-monday","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-part","22":"tag-remain","23":"tag-u-n-resolution"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115390635463637715","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}