Palestinians have buried dozens of bodies in a mass grave in southern Gaza after officials said Israel returned remains it had exhumed from the territory.

An AFP photographer saw Gazans moving the bodies in blue plastic shrouds from a truck towards the newly dug mass grave east of Rafah.

Health ministry employees wearing white protective clothing lowered them into the ground, near the tents of people displaced by the Israel-Hamas fighting.

A Palestinian source at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt told AFP that the bodies returned were “stolen by the occupation (Israeli) army during its incursion” into Gaza.

A second source at Gaza’s ministry of religious affairs told AFP that Israel “stole them from Bani Suheila cemetery, east of Khan Yunis” around two weeks ago.