By WAFAA SHURAFA and JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel has handed over the bodies of 30 Palestinians, according to the Red Cross and hospital officials in Gaza, a day after Palestinian fighters returned the remains of two hostages to Israel.
A doctor at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis confirmed receiving the bodies and said they were all unidentified. The Red Cross said that its teams had facilitated the transfer.
The exchange is the latest indication that the fraught Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement is moving forward, despite Israeli strikes on Gaza this week that killed more than 100 people following the killing of an Israeli soldier.
Gaza and Israel grapple with latest exchange of bodies
Ahmed al-Farra, head of the pediatric unit at Nasser Hospital, confirmed to The Associated Press on Friday morning that the hospital received the unidentified bodies of 30 Palestinians from Israel. He said all the bodies of Palestinians turned over as part of the ceasefire pact have arrived without identification details.
Photos showed the remains, in white body bags, arranged in rows inside the grounds of Nasser Hospital. Health officials have struggled to identify bodies without access to DNA kits.
The return brings the number of Palestinian bodies returned by Israel to 225, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It is unclear if the bodies returned by Israel were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, died in Israeli custody as detainees or were recovered from Gaza by troops during the war.
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In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Thursday that the remains returned by Palestinian fighters had been confirmed as those of Sahar Baruch and Amiram Cooper, both taken hostage during the 2023 attack by Hamas that set off the war.
Hamas has now returned the remains of 17 hostages since the start of the ceasefire, with 11 others still in Gaza and set to be turned over under the terms of the agreement.
On Friday a small crowd of Israelis gathered in the plaza known as Hostages Square, praying together for the return of the dead hostages still in Gaza.
“We cannot give up until everybody, all the bodies will be here,” said Rimona Velner, a Tel Aviv resident who joined the gathering. “It’s very important to the families and for us … to close this circle.”
Warning to Hamas
A senior U.S. official and a second source familiar with negotiations said that in messages passed to Hamas by mediators on Wednesday, Israel warned the group that its fighters had 24 hours to leave the yellow zone or face strikes.
That deadline passed Thursday evening, after which the senior U.S. official said “Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line.” Hamas did not respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, Shifa hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said that one person had been killed by Israeli gunfire in northern Gaza. Israel’s military said its troops had fired after the person approached troops in a way that posed a threat.
Government officials from eight Arab and Muslim nations will gather in Istanbul on Monday to discuss the next steps for Gaza, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Friday.
The talks follow a meeting between the countries’ leaders and President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations Security Council, preceding the ceasefire agreement. They mark the latest effort to create an International Stabilization Force in Gaza, outlined in a 20-point U.S. plan.
The ceasefire, which began Oct. 10, is aimed at winding down a war that is by far the deadliest and most destructive of those ever fought between Israel and Hamas.
In the October 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.
In the two years since, Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 68,600 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and is staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
Israel, which some international critics have accused of committing genocide in Gaza, has disputed the figures without providing a contradicting toll.
Israeli fire kills teen in West Bank
In the central West Bank town of Silwad on Friday, mourners thronged the streets for the funeral of Yamen Hamed, 15, who Palestinian health officials say was shot by an Israeli soldier overnight. Samed Yousef Hamed kissed his son goodbye.
Samed said his son left home Thursday to hang out with friends. Soon after, he learned the teen had been injured and Israel’s army was preventing an ambulance from reaching him. Ahed Smirat, the ambulance driver who tried to reach Hamed following the shooting, told the AP that troops held him up multiple times. By the time they let him through, troops told him the teen had died, he said.
Israel’s military called the teen a “terrorist,” and said troops had fired believing that he was holding an explosive. Hamed’s funeral was Friday.
The shooting is the latest in a surge of military killings of Palestinian children in the West Bank that has accompanied a general upswing in violence in the territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Some were killed during Israeli military raids in dense neighborhoods, others by sniper fire in peaceful areas.
The killings have risen as the Israeli military has stepped up operations in the occupied West Bank since the war’s onset in what it calls a crackdown on fighters.
Frankel reported from Jerusalem. AP reporter Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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