“All the provisions of the (ceasefire) agreement relate to general issues and need to be clarified and negotiations need to take place,” he said in a broadcast with Al Jazeera Mubashar, responding to a question about whether there was a timetable for Hamas to hand over the remains to the Israeli regime.
“As for the bodies of the hostages, we have promised to transfer all the bodies we have and those that will be discovered in the future,” Abu Marzouk said, TASS reported.
Hamas stressed that it “does not want to store bodies” and “wants to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”
“The United States is constantly monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and we expect impartiality and neutrality from the United States,” the Hamas official added.
As Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported on October 17, citing Hamas sources, the Palestinian resistance forces will have to carry out a “massive search operation” to find the bodies of prisoners remaining in Gaza. The newspaper’s sources said the search process was complicated by Hamas supporters who knew where the bodies were buried and died in the fighting. Additionally, some areas of the enclave where the bodies are believed to have been buried have been completely destroyed by Israeli forces, making access extremely difficult.
MNA/