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The U.S. is planning to offer rewards to Gazans who help locate the bodies of the deceased hostages who were held by Hamas, a pair of senior White House advisors told reporters Wednesday evening.
“We’re probably going to put together some sort of program where we’re going to ask people to see if they can help us to locate bodies. And we’re going to pay rewards for that type of good behavior,” one advisor said.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, all 20 living hostages have been returned to Israel, along with nine bodies of the deceased. Nineteen more bodies have yet to be located.
Hamas claims it does not know the location of the other bodies, and “significant efforts and special equipment” would be needed to locate them.
IDF SAYS BODY TURNED OVER BY HAMAS DOESN’T MATCH ANY HOSTAGES
An advisor tamped down accusations that Hamas had violated the ceasefire agreements, insisting the terms of the agreement prioritized living hostages, and they expected bodies to be difficult to locate in a war zone.
Still, they added, “I can tell you that we’re not going to leave here until everybody comes home.”
“We’ve heard a lot of people saying, ‘Well, you know, Hamas violated the deal, because not all the bodies have been returned.’ I think the understanding we had with them was we’d get all the live hostages, out, which they did honor that.”
EXCLUSIVE: ISRAELI AMBASSADOR SAYS NO PEACE IN GAZA UNLESS HAMAS HANDS OVER ALL 48 HOSTAGES, DISARMS
Israeli intelligence and Turkish retrieval experts, trained for Turkey’s frequent earthquakes, will aid the effort to locate the 19 remaining bodies.
“You have to understand the complexity of the conditions on the ground,” an advisor said. “The entire Gaza Strip has been pulverized. It looks like something out of a movie. And there’s very, very little buildings left standing.”
The advisor equated the debris levels to those seen after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. “This is, I don’t know, it feels like multiple times more.”
Amid the debris are unexploded ordnance, further complicating body retrieval.
An advisor also detailed plans for “safe zones” behind the Yellow Line — the area still occupied by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza — for Palestinians looking to flee Hamas as the militant group conducts executions across the strip.
“Israel is very committed to creating safety for the people of Gaza who want to live in peace. And so this is a new line of effort that we requested. And that it was met with a lot of enthusiasm from Israel to try to set this up.”
Violent clashes between Hamas and rival groups have been reported in areas across Gaza, and videos circulating across social media appear to show executions.
An advisor told reporters it had told Hamas to stop the killings.
“There have been a lot of reports in Gaza of Hamas killing and going after Palestinian civilians. That’s something that we’ve been working with the mediators to send a message to say we’d really like to see that stop.”
“We are seeing different actions on all sides that, obviously, that President Trump and his team are working very hard to minimize.”
An Israeli military official told Fox News Digital the killings are “Hamas’ deliberate attempt to show the killing publicly and reestablish its rule by terrorizing civilians.”
Trump earlier this week suggested Hamas was conducting police activities and those who were killed were gang members.
“[Hamas] do want to stop the problems and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” he told reporters on Monday.
“You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be — we want it to be safe.”
The president added on Tuesday: “They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad gangs, very, very bad.”
“And that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you,” he added.
On Monday, Hamas returned all living hostages, showing a positive sign for the historic but tenuous ceasefire agreement with Israel. The IDF, in turn, pulled back in Gaza to behind what’s known as a “Yellow line,” part of Phase One of the agreement.
Fox News’ Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.
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