KIEV, April 16 -- A search and recovery operation restarted on Thursday at the site in eastern Ukraine where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed last July, killing all 298 passengers aboard.

A team of international experts from the Netherlands and Malaysia have arrived at the crash area in Donetsk region for the first time in five months, local media reported.

A total of 30 investigators are expected to spend two to three weeks to search for physical evidence of the crash, personal belongings of the victims and human remains.

Michael Marshall, a member of the search team from the Netherlands in charge of identifying the bodies, said that a total of 296 of the dead have so far been identified, while two are still unaccounted for.

The search of the area was suspended in November last year because of harsh winter conditions and hostilities between government troops and pro-independence insurgents near the crash site. Now, a fragile truce is in place in eastern Ukraine, allowing international experts to safely access the area.

The Boeing 777-200, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, went down on July 17, 2014 near Grabove village over the insurgent-held territory in Donetsk region.

The Ukrainian government and insurgents in eastern Ukraine have blamed each other for the downing of the passenger jet.