Israeli troops surrounded a Gaza cemetery amid heavy gunfire before digging up graves in their search for the body of the final hostage, Palestinian witnesses told The National.
Gazans described the operation as "strange and frightening". Some dodged Israeli drones to flee the scene, fearing they would be killed if soldiers saw them.
Israel announced on Monday it had found the body of police officer Ran Gvili, ending a 27-month quest to secure the return of all hostages from Gaza.
The Israeli army provided few details of the search, known as Operation Courageous Heart, other than to say it drew on intelligence work and was carried out by reservists and medical teams.
But some Palestinians have spoken about what happened at Al Batsh Cemetery in Gaza city, about 300 metres from a main road through the enclave. While Israel said the operation began on Saturday, residents said they first heard Israeli forces advancing early on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Palestinian media reported that four people were killed and three were injured in Israeli shelling near the cemetery. It was not clear whether that was related to the search.
"What happened at dawn on Sunday was strange and frightening," said a Gaza resident, 27. "The amount of gunfire and shelling did not stop for more than two continuous hours, trapping the 12 of us inside the house, unable to move.
"I saw large numbers of military vehicles, soldiers, tanks and bulldozers gathered around Al Batsh Cemetery, which is about 300 metres from Salah Al Din Street inside Al Shaaf neighbourhood."
The resident said they told their family to leave the area using a back route because "if the soldiers sensed our presence, we would be killed". As they waited for an opportunity to leave, they saw graves being dug up, bodies being removed and placed on the road, and Israeli vehicles they had not seen before during the war.
"When things calmed down a bit and we felt we could move, we monitored the presence of quadcopter drones until we were finally able to leave together through the back route," the resident said.
"We reached our relatives’ house in Gaza’s Old City. I kept thinking to myself that there must be something in that cemetery, because we are used to the Israelis digging up graves when they are searching either for their own bodies or for the bodies of Palestinian leaders."
Mohammad Al Yaqoubi, who lives about 400 metres from the cemetery, said Israeli troops "advanced with heavy gunfire" on Sunday morning. He said the sound of bulldozers and digging did not stop until noon on Monday, not long before Israel announced it had found Mr Gvili's remains.
"In the afternoon, there was very heavy gunfire from the soldiers and military vehicles. A few hours later, we heard that the body had been found," he said. "The sheer size of the forces and the non-stop digging made it clear that the army had come for a specific mission it was determined to carry out.”
Dozens of bodies had been examined in the cemetery, Israeli army radio said. Jared Kushner, an adviser and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, said American, Israeli and Egyptian intelligence agencies worked together in the search for hostages.
Under the terms of Mr Trump's ceasefire deal, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian detainees in exchange for 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 28 who died. Israel had received 27 of the 28 bodies by December, but the search for Mr Gvili took longer.
Mr Gvili, who was 24 when he died, was described as a hero in Israel for joining the fight against Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023, an attack that sparked the war on Gaza. He was wounded and taken to the enclave. Israeli authorities confirmed his death in January 2024.
