Hamas denies knowledge of the locations of the prisoners’ bodies and confirms its commitment to the agreement news

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied Israel’s claims about the movement’s knowledge of the locations of the bodies of Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip, stressing that these allegations are “false” and that the change in the features of the Strip as a result of the aggression makes accessing the bodies a complex and difficult process.

Qassem said, in a direct statement to Al Jazeera, that the Palestinians in Gaza have the right to bring in the necessary equipment to retrieve the bodies of about 10,000 martyrs who are still under the rubble of destruction caused by the Israeli aggression.

He added that Hamas is committed to completing the first phase of the prisoner exchange agreement in order to “block the pretexts for the occupation,” stressing that the movement is determined to hand over the bodies of Israeli prisoners as soon as possible.

The Hamas spokesman indicated that the movement has completed the delivery of 18 bodies of Israeli prisoners so far, but weak capabilities and lack of equipment are hindering the completion of the recovery process in the rest of the affected areas.

Israeli accusations

On the other hand, Israeli media reported estimates that Hamas “knows the burial place of Colonel Assaf Hamami and Officer Hadar Goldin,” but – according to these allegations – it is refraining from handing over their bodies at the present time.

For his part, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Israel “did not violate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza,” stressing the existence of mutual obligations between the two parties.

Rubio called on the Hamas movement to speed up the delivery of the bodies of the Israeli prisoners, while the Israeli Channel 12 quoted an American official as saying that the 48 hours that President Donald Trump spoke about to follow up on the prisoners’ file “were not a final warning” to the movement.

On October 10, the first phase of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Hamas and Israel came into effect.

Since the 13th of this month, Hamas has released the 20 living Israeli prisoners, and handed over the bodies of 16 prisoners, leaving 12 remaining.

The movement confirms that it seeks to close the file, and needs time to search for the rest of the bodies and remove them in light of the massive destruction caused by the Israeli war of annihilation since October 7, 2023.

The extermination war left 68,527 Palestinian martyrs, 170,395 injured, most of them children and women, and 90% of the infrastructure destroyed, with the cost of reconstruction estimated by the United Nations at about 70 billion dollars.