Israel has returned many remains that were dug up from graves in the besieged enclave in recent weeks, according to a statement released on Thursday by the government media office in Gaza, which is operated by Hamas.
On Thursday afternoon, the bodies were reburied at the beach area close to Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Dozens of mourners watched as men dressed in white hazmat suits arranged the remains covered in blue plastic sheeting at the bottom of a trench and then a bulldozer covered them with sand, according to an AFP correspondent.
“The bodies arrived through the Kerem Shalom crossing and were received by the ministry of health,” Ihsan Al-Natour from the Hamas-run ministry of endowments told AFP at the funeral.
“We do not know the names or any other information about them,” he added.
On multiple instances, Israeli forces have brought bodies from Gaza into Israel for inspection in the process of searching for captives abducted during Hamas’s October 7 raid.
Journalists from AFP have previously seen the reburial of bodies that were allegedly dug up by Israeli forces in November, December, and January, according to Gaza officials.
The body in charge of crossings and borders in the besieged enclave stated in a separate statement that the 47 bodies that Israel sent back on Thursday were initially “transferred to Al-Najjar Hospital” in Rafah, in the southern part of Gaza.
“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 Palestinian territory, it said.
The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into reports about the latest group of returned bodies.
Hamas took around 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November.
Israel believes that 99 hostages remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.
An AFP count of official numbers indicates that some 1,160 persons in Israel lost their lives as a result of the October attack, the majority of them being civilians.
The health ministry of Gaza reports that at least 30,800 people have died as a result of Israel’s military assault to eliminate Hamas in retaliation, with women and children making up the majority of the casualties.
The administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing tremendous internal pressure to ensure the release of captives as a condition of any future ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
After three hostages were slain by soldiers in December after they believed them to be a threat, the pressure increased.
