GAZA STRIP (AFP) – Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said yesterday that Israel had returned dozens of bodies that had been exhumed from graves in the besieged territory in recent weeks.
Israeli forces have on several occasions taken bodies from Gaza to Israel for examinations as they look for hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack.
AFP journalists have previously witnessed the reburial of bodies which Gaza officials said had been exhumed by Israeli forces in November, December and January.
The 47 new bodies sent back by Israel yesterday “have been transferred to Al-Najjar Hospital” in Rafah, in southern Gaza, the besieged territory’s crossings and borders authority said in a statement. A separate statement from the Hamas-run government media office said they would be “buried in a recently established mass grave” near Rafah.
“The bodies were seized and transferred to Israel under the pretext of examination and verification” to ensure they were not those of hostages held in Gaza, the government statement said.
Since the start of the war, Israeli officials have exhumed “hundreds” of bodies from graves at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, it said.
The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into reports about the latest group of returned bodies.
