US recruiting Palestinians for interim Gaza government

"There’s a lot of incredibly successful Palestinians in the diaspora who really want to see the suffering of their people end, and they’ve been reaching out to try to be a part of [the technocratic government]," said one official.

"It’s the first time that they believe that there could be a new alternative created that’s not the Palestinian Authority and not Hamas, that could finally be a leadership that allows the Palestinian people to break free of the poor situations they’ve been in, which has mostly been inflicted by poor leadership and bad decisions.

"It could be very successful if you get the right leaders who are doing it for the right reasons and trying to create a new system, compared to the old patronage and corrupt systems that have failed."

The officials also dismissed claims that Hamas is violating the Trump-backed ceasefire by delaying further releases of the bodies of Israeli hostages.

The terror group has, so far, released 10 of the 26 deceased captives, but has claimed that it cannot reach the others’ remains as they are buried under rubble.

One of the US advisers at the briefing clarified: "We’ve heard a lot of people saying ‘Hamas violated the deal, because not all the bodies have been returned’.

"The understanding we had with them was we get all the live hostages out, which they did honour that.

"Right now, we have a mechanism in place where we’re working closely with mediators… to do our best to get as many bodies out as possible."

"It would have been almost impossible for Hamas — even if they knew where all the 28 bodies were — to mobilise and get them all," added another official.

However, more accusations of violations were prompted when Israel discovered that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas was not, in fact, that of an Israeli hostage.

The IDF said that examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv revealed that some of the remains "do not match any of the hostages".

In response, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir accused Hamas of "playing games" with the releases.

"Enough with the disgrace. Moments after opening the crossings to hundreds of trucks, Hamas very quickly returned to its known methods – to lie, to cheat and to abuse families and the bodies," he fumed.