News- Middle East: The spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, Mahmud Basal, has sharply condemned the blatant double standards of international organizations in handling the remains of Palestinians and Israelis buried under the rubble across the devastated strip.

In a statement released on Monday, Basal denounced the “double standards” of certain organizations that have brought heavy machinery into the besieged Palestinian territory to search for the bodies of Israeli captives, while continuing to ignore the thousands of Palestinian martyrs still trapped beneath the ruins of their bombed homes.

“It breaks our hearts that some agencies and organizations have brought in the necessary heavy, powerful equipment and bulldozers only to search for the bodies of Israeli captives, while no equipment are available for 10,000 bodies of Palestinian citizens to be recovered from under the rubble," the statement read.

Basal said the selective humanitarian concern reflects the same international bias that allowed Israel’s two-year-long genocide in Gaza to remain unchecked.

“This represents a double standard that in no way reflects humanity. True humanity requires the same care to be given to Palestinian bodies as is given to Israeli bodies.”

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Hamas must expedite the process of handing over the bodies of Israeli captives.

Israeli authorities have said that they don’t want to talk about phase two or next steps within Trump's so-called peace plan until the remaining 13 bodies are brought back to the occupied territories.

The Israeli regime was previously blocking equipment needed to recover captives' bodies while complaining that the resistance delays delivering them.

Hamas has now been working in cooperation with the Red Cross and Egyptian teams for the past 24 hours to locate the remains of Israeli captives in areas still occupied by the Israeli army.

Basal complained that a limited number of heavy equipment is allowed to enter Gaza to search for the bodies of Palestinians buried under rubble across the besieged strip.

He said that the retrieval of a single body can take 12 hours of work, given the scale of the devastation.

“I think we need 10,000 days to recover the bodies of 10,000 martyrs. This means that we need a very large amount of heavy equipment … The trucks, bulldozers, and excavators that have entered the Strip are nowhere near sufficient to carry out our task,” Basal stated.

The spokesperson added that the retrieval of bodies was further complicated by the sheer volume of rubble.

“If the rubble is removed, where will we take it and where will we put it? Is the issue just about recovering the bodies, or is it also about recovering the bodies, removing the rubble, and finding places to put it?” he said.

“The issue requires the integration and cooperation of all parties so that we can immediately start working on this and recover the bodies of the martyrs.”

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza are burying dozens of prisoners’ bodies that Israel has returned in exchange for the remains of Israeli captives. Many of them are unrecognizable and display signs of torture and mutilation.

Israel’s violations of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza have claimed more than 93 Palestinian lives, as the regime continues to target civilians across the besieged territory.

During Israel’s two-year-long genocidal war on Gaza, the occupying regime killed at least 68,527 Palestinians and wounded 170,395 others, before a ceasefire agreement was reached in the besieged strip earlier this month.

Source: Press TV