Earlier on Wednesday UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher urged Israel to immediately open all crossings into Gaza for humanitarian aid, as called for in the ceasefire plan.
In a post on X, Fletcher said Hamas must “make strenuous efforts to return all the bodies of the deceased hostages”.
He added: “As Israel has agreed, they must allow the massive surge of humanitarian aid – thousands of trucks a week – on which so many lives depend, and on which the world has insisted.”
He called for “more crossings open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing remaining obstacles” and said “withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip”.
Trump’s ceasefire plan, which both Israel and Hamas accepted, envisaged the handover of all 48 hostages would be completed by noon on Monday. Hamas returned all the 20 living hostages on Monday.
But the US-brokered ceasefire agreement appears to acknowledge that Hamas and other Palestinian factions may not have been able to find all hostage remains before the initial deadline on Monday.
Under the agreement, Israel also agreed to hand over the bodies of 15 Palestinians in return for every deceased Israeli hostage.
Israel has returned the bodies of a further 45 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of bodies released by Israel to 90.
Meanwhile in Gaza, residents report growing concern about the durability of the ceasefire – and food prices have surged as Palestinians stockpile food.
Traders and suppliers in the enclave have been hoarding food items to create shortages and drive up profits, fearing that the war could resume, local residents told the BBC.
“Every time we start to feel safe, new threats appear, and we fear the war will start all over again,” says mother-of-six Neven Al-Mughrabi, a displaced resident from Gaza who lives in Khan Younis.
“I lost my house in Gaza City, I decided to stay here with my family because I don’t trust the ceasefire and we’re sick of displacement.”
She added that a trader in Khan Younis’s main market said demand for flour, oil and sugar had surged within hours. “Despite the sudden rise of prices by about 30%, people are buying as if they don’t trust the calm will last long, everyone is afraid aid will stop,” Neven says.
The US advisors also said the US was working with Israel to create “safe spaces” behind the yellow-line for people to flee if they feel under threat from Hamas.
In the longer-term, the advisors said they did not see a future for Hamas to govern parts of Gaza.
The current focus, according to the advisors, is on “de-confliction” that would allow aid to flow into Gaza and reconstruction to begin, with an international security force still in its early stages.