The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) announced on Saturday that 43 out of the 197 bodies released by Israel on Wednesday as part of the prisoner swap with Hezbollah are those of DFLP fighters.

The DFLP's Central Information Office in Lebanon reported that it had received the bodies of 43 DFLP-affiliated fighters, out of some 167 DFLP-affiliated fighters whose bodies are buried in the 'Cemeteries of Numbers' inside Israel. The bodies, which were not identified when returned by Israel, are currently being screened in hopes of matching them with names of Palestinian fighters. DNA tests are being used to identify some of the bodies.

Israel buries the bodies of Palestinians killed in attacks on Israeli targets in unmarked graves in secret locations. 197 bodies from these cemeteries were returned to Palestinian factions in Lebanon on Wednesday as part of the prisoner exchange.

The DFLP's Central Information Office said in a statement that the bodies are those of fighters killed in attacks after 1985 in areas of northern Israel like Ein Ziv, Tiberias, and Beit She'an. The only body released from before the mid-1980s was Dalal Al-Moughrabi, who was killed in a 1978 attack.

Meanwhile, the media office of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Lebanon reported that they are also working to identify some 24 bodies of PFLP-affiliated fighters received in the prisoner exchange. They added that 87 bodies of PFLP-affiliated fighters have been held by Israel since 1970, and the whereabouts of another four PFLP members who have been killed since 1982 are still unknown.