This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The terrorists of Hamas, who agreed to participate in President Donald Trump's stepped peace agreement to resolve a war they launched against Israel two years ago when they invaded and killed 1,200 and kidnapped hundreds more, have thrown a wrench into the works.
They had agreed that they would release all living hostages and return the bodies of those killed in captivity to Israel.
They returned 20 living hostages, but now claim they are unable to return all the bodies of the 28 dead hostages that have been listed.
A report in the Washington Examiner said the terrorists handed over 10 bodies, but one of those was not a hostage at all.
Now Hamas is claiming to have returned "all the remains it had without additional equipment."
The report suggested the terror organization perhaps knows of the location of other victims, but it cannot "access" those locations.
"The al Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, said it 'committed to what was agreed upon and handed over everyone it had in terms of living captives and what it had in terms of bodies that it could recover,'" the report said.
But the extraction of the remaining bodies will require "special equipment," the terrorists said.
The report described how the hostages taken Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its war against Israel, were handled in a "decentralized" plan, meaning they were spread out across the Gaza Strip. That means some of them could have died during military force conflicts between Israel and Hamas.
One U.S. adviser explained, "On top of all that debris is a lot of unexploded ordnance, and presumably, under that unexploded ordnance and that debris, there are many bodies. Now, there's a lot of different intelligence on where someone might have been killed, where they might have been injured, and we've got a lot of information with regard to that. And we've got a huge, huge effort in understanding all of those things."
The development, the report said, could result in sanctions against the terrorists, including "limiting promised aid" or even "continuing the war."
It will depend on whether the Hamas explanations come across as "genuine," the report said.
The Washington Examiner cited a statement from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said, "If Hamas refuses to abide by the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the U.S., will return to fighting and work to completely defeat Hamas, change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the goals of the war."
