Israel on Saturday returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, hospital officials in the strip said, a day after militants returned the remains of a hostage to Israel under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire agreement in the two-year war.
The exchange marked another step forward for the tenuous, US-brokered truce. As part of the deal, Israel has returned the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli hostage.
The Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis said the 15 bodies were brought there.
The return came shortly after Israel confirmed the remains given back Friday night were of an Israeli man who died while fighting Hamas in the militants’ October 7, 2023 attack that started the war. The hostage body was identified as that of Lior Rudaeff, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s office.
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The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Rudaeff was born in Argentina and moved to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, a farming community in southern Israel, as a child.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 23 hostages, including Rudaeff’s body, with five still remaining in Gaza.
Israel has handed over the bodies of 300 Palestinians, including the 15 returned on Saturday. Health officials in Gaza have struggled to identify the bodies without access to DNA kits, and have so far identified 89 of the bodies, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Palestinian death toll in Gaza tops 69,000
One Palestinian was killed in Gaza by Israeli firing and another wounded on Saturday, according to local medics.
Gazan medical officials said the person who died was killed by Israeli firing east of Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Civil defence rescuers said one Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli gunfire in the western Khan Younis area in the southern part of the Strip.
The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza war rose to more than 69,000, Gaza health officials said Saturday.
The latest jump in deaths is attributed to more bodies being recovered under the rubble in the devastated strip since the ceasefire began on October 10, and also because previously unidentified bodies were identified.
It also includes Palestinians killed by strikes on the territory since the truce took hold, attacks that Israel says are to take out remaining militants.
The US-brokered Gaza truce, which left thorny issues such as the disarmament of Hamas and a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza unresolved, has been tested by periodic violence.
UN calls for more aid to enter Gaza
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel is supposed to allow substantially more aid into Gaza.
However, relief efforts under the pact still fall well short of what is needed in Gaza, according to Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the United Nations.
More than 200,000 metric tons in aid is positioned to move into Gaza, but only 37,000 tons, mostly food, have been admitted, he said.
“Despite significant progress on the humanitarian scale-up, people’s urgent needs are still immense, with impediments not being lifted quickly enough since the ceasefire,” Haq said, citing reports from UN’s humanitarian service, OCHA.
Haq lamented that entry into Gaza continues to be limited to only two crossings, with no direct access to northern Gaza from Israel or to southern Gaza from Egypt, while NGO staff are being denied access.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
