"All of the living hostages have been recovered," Trump said during a press conference at the White House on Wednesday evening. "It's a horrific operation, but they (Hamas) are continuing to dig and are finding many bodies, some of them under the rubble, and they have to remove them."
The US President renewed his warning to Hamas, stressing the need to disarm it in accordance with the terms of the ceasefire agreement. He said, "Either they lay down their weapons, or we will."
Trump indicated that there was no need for US forces to be involved on the ground in Gaza, believing that other countries in the region could assume this role.
On Monday, Hamas released the 20 remaining living Israeli prisoners it held. In return, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, 1,718 detainees from Gaza since October 7, 2023, and 90 bodies of Palestinians.
As of Wednesday, Hamas had handed over the bodies of 10 prisoners, and said it "needed time and heavy equipment" to retrieve the bodies of 18 others. Israel claimed that one of the bodies received did not match any of the prisoners.
This comes as part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange and ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip reached by Hamas and Israel in accordance with the Trump plan, whose country has supported Israel's war of extermination on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
For two years, Israel, with American support, waged a genocidal war on Gaza, leaving 67,938 martyrs and 170,169 wounded, most of them children and women, and a famine that claimed the lives of 463 Palestinians, including 157 children.
