Israel has returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them, according to sources in the territory’s health ministry.

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.