Israel on Tuesday returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them, sources in the territory's health ministry said.
The bodes, which had been transported to Israel, were returned through the Red Cross to Hamas authorities who buried them in a mass grave in Gaza, the sources said.
An AFP photographer saw a digger lowering the blue body bags into a trench in Rafah, in the far south of the narrow territory.
Following inspection of the corpses, they were returned to the Red Cross through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. They were then transported in a truck to the mass grave, the sources said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
More than 20,900 people have been killed in Israeli assault in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry. Some 55,000 have also been wounded.
The shrouded bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, that were taken and later released by Israel, are unloaded from a container to be buried in a mass grave in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. AFP
The shrouded bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, that were taken and later released by Israel, are buried in a mass grave in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. AFP
The shrouded bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, that were taken and later released by Israel, are buried in a mass grave in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on, on Tuesday. AFP
People look on as the shrouded bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, that were taken and later released by Israel, are buried in a mass grave in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. AFP
The shrouded bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, that were taken and later released by Israel, are unloaded from a container to be buried in a mass grave in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. AFP
