GAZA, (The Palestine Foundation Pakistan)
The Al-Qassam Brigades (QB), the armed wing of the Hamas Movement, announced on Tuesday that they had found the body of an Israeli soldier east of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza City during ongoing excavation and search operations inside the so-called “Yellow Line.”
The QB confirmed that procedures are underway to arrange the handover of the body to the Israeli side.
In a statement, the QB said that the entry of engineering equipment and the accompaniment of Red Cross teams by QB members during the body recovery process inside the Yellow Line significantly accelerated the extraction efforts and led to the discovery of multiple remains.
This development follows the handover of the remains of three Israeli officers and soldiers just two days earlier.
The Israeli army currently controls what is referred to as the “Yellow Line,” which spans approximately half the area of the Gaza Strip, from its northern tip to the outskirts of Rafah in the south.
Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect in October, Hamas has handed over 20 live Israeli prisoners and the remains of 20 others. The Movement said that retrieving additional bodies “will take time due to the widespread destruction caused by the war.”
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, around 9,500 Palestinians remain missing under the rubble left by Israel’s two-year-long war on the Strip, which has claimed the lives of over 68,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured approximately 170,000. The Gaza genocide has also destroyed more than 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure.
