Hamas expands search for remaining Israeli hostages

Hamas expanded its search for the remaining bodies of Israeli hostages to new areas of the country. Gaza Strip on Sunday, the terrorist group said, a day after Egypt deployed a team of experts to help recover the bodies.

A convoy of trucks and heavy equipment, including an excavator and bulldozers, entered southern Gaza overnight, as part of efforts by international mediators to shore up the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, two Egyptian officials told the News, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Footage from the Agence France-Presse news agency showed the convoy in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza.

Under the fragile US-brokered ceasefire reached on October 10, Hamas is expected to return all remains of Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel agreed to return 15 Palestinian bodies for every hostage body returned.

So far, Hamas has returned 18 hostage bodies, but in the last five days it has not released any. Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians.

Hamas Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said the Palestinian group began searching new areas for 13 hostage bodies remaining in the enclave, according to comments shared by the group early Sunday.

President Trump warned Saturday that he was “watching very closely” to ensure that Hamas returns more bodies in the next 48 hours. “Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others can come back now and for some reason they don’t,” he wrote in Truth Social.

Al-Hayya, who is also Hamas’s chief negotiator, told an Egyptian media outlet last week that efforts to recover the bodies faced challenges due to massive destruction, burying them at great depths.

Israeli strikes wound four in central Gaza

Israeli forces attacked the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza on Saturday night, for the second time in a week, according to the Awda hospital that received the wounded.

The Israeli military claimed it had attacked militants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack Israeli troops.

Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest militant group, denied it was preparing for an attack.

Hamas called the attack a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to sabotage Trump’s efforts to end the war.

It was the same area that Israel attacked in a series of attacks on October 19, after the army accused Hamas militants of killing two Israeli soldiers. That day, Israel launched dozens of deadly attacks across Gaza, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, according to Hamas-run health authorities in the strip. was the the most serious challenge to the fragile ceasefire.

Netanyahu defended the military’s actions, saying Israel will not tolerate attacks against them and “will respond at our own discretion against attacks.”

“Of course, we also thwart dangers as they form, before they take place, as we did yesterday in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Netanyahu also emphasized that Israel remained in charge of its own security, following accusations last week that the Trump administration was dictating the terms of Israel’s response to security concerns in Gaza. Vice President J.D. Vance denied such speculation during your visit.