GAZA/ISTANBUL

Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip continued on Friday their search for the bodies of Israeli captives under the rubble left behind by the Israeli army after over two years of genocidal war.

During the war, the Hamas movement said that the Israeli army had bombed sites where Israeli captives were being held, resulting in the deaths of several of them under the debris.

Anadolu's camera captured three bulldozers operating in the city of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, searching for captives' bodies in the ruins, while armed fighters were deployed to secure the area.

The footage showed limited excavation work due to the lack of resources, as the teams relied on bulldozers to reach areas believed to contain the captives’ remains.

On Wednesday, the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, confirmed that it was making significant efforts to close the file of the remaining Israeli captives’ bodies.

The group explained that it will require special equipment and technologies to search beneath the rubble and recover what remains of the bodies.

Since Monday, Hamas has released 20 Israeli captives alive and handed over the bodies of 10 out of 28, most of whom are Israelis, saying it needs more time to retrieve the remaining 18 bodies.

Israel, however, claims the number is 19, asserting on Wednesday that one of the ten bodies it received did not match any of its missing captives.

The deal was reached between Israel and Hamas last week, based on a plan presented by US President Donald Trump. Phase one included the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, and rendered it largely uninhabitable.