Israel and Hamas traded blame over cease-fire violations Thursday while the former said it would reopen Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt to allow Palestinian movement, but offered no timeline.
A row over the return of bodies of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza retains the potential to upend the truce, along with other major planks of the plan yet to be resolved, including disarmament of militants and Gaza's future governance.
Israel demanded that Hamas fulfill its obligations in turning over the bodies of the 28 deceased hostages. The resistance group said it had handed over 10 bodies, but Israel said one of them was not that of a hostage.
"We will not compromise on this, and we will spare no effort until our fallen hostages return, every last one of them," Israel's government spokesperson said Wednesday.
The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, which was reduced to vast tracts of rubble by the war, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the Israel-blockaded Palestinian enclave.
On Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the cease-fire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.
"The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground," he said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said that some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli cease-fire positions and troops "opened fire to remove the threat."
Israel has said the next phase of the 20-point plan to end the war engineered by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration calls for Hamas to relinquish its weapons and cede power, which it has so far refused to do.
Hamas has instead launched a security crackdown in urban areas vacated by Israeli forces, parading its power through public executions and clashes with local armed clans.
Twenty remaining living hostages were freed on Monday in exchange for thousands of Palestinians jailed in Israel.
Later Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry said Israel had released 30 bodies of Palestinians killed during the conflict, taking the total of bodies it has received since Monday to 120.
Longer-term elements of Trump's plan, including the make-up of an international "stabilization force" for the small, densely populated territory and moves towards creating a Palestinian state – rejected by Israel – have yet to be hashed out.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said Thursday the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) would work with international institutions and partners to address Gaza's security, logistical, financial and governance challenges.
An upcoming conference in Egypt on Gaza’s reconstruction would need to clarify how donor funds are organized, who would receive them and how they would be disbursed, he told reporters. Hamas ejected the PA from Gaza in a brief civil war in 2007.
Much of the heavily urbanised coastal enclave has been rendered a wasteland by Israel's genocidal war that have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, incursion on southern Israel that caused 1,200 deaths and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
