Closing summary
Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt will probably be reopened on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday. “We are making all the necessary preparations,” Sa’ar was quoted as saying at a conference on the Mediterranean region, being held in Naples.
Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Thursday that Israel remained committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, Reuters reports. He also demanded that Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over.
International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday urged all parties to continue moving in the direction of a sustained lasting peace after a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit the entire region, Reuters reports.
A senior Hamas official on Thursday accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops “opened fire to remove the threat”.
Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, bringing the total number handed over to 120, the Hamas-run health ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said. Under a ceasefire deal brokered by US president Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.
Hamas has announced that the remains of all the deceased Israeli hostages that it can reach have been handed back and it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from Gaza’s ruins, amid threats from Israel to resume fighting if the terms of ceasefire are not honoured. Two further bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, after Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages – along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.
Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage. Israel had earlier warned it could keep Rafah shut and reduce aid into the Palestinian territory as Hamas, it said, was returning the bodies of dead hostages too slowly, underlining the risks to a ceasefire that halted two years of devastating war and saw all living hostages held by Hamas released.
Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Thursday identified the remains of two more hostages returned from Gaza, as officials and families warned Hamas to hand over the bodies of those still held. The Israeli military said the bodies were those of Nova music festivalgoer Inbar Hayman and Sgt. Muhammad al-Atresh, who were killed in fighting on 7 October, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, igniting the war.
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday cited Gaza as an example of the world’s failure to stop millions of people going hungry, blaming a “soulless economy” and calling on people to rethink their lifestyles and priorities. The crisis was “a clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, a soulless economy,” Leo told the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) at an event to mark its 80th anniversary.
Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt will probably be reopened on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday.
“We are making all the necessary preparations,” Sa’ar was quoted as saying at a conference on the Mediterranean region, being held in Naples.
He did not specify whether the crossing would be opened for the passage of humanitarian aid, or for people.
From the clean soft sands of Zikim beach or its sky-blue and turquoise waters, where on Thursday waves gently lapped against the thighs of cheery middle-aged women, one can see a different world.
Looking past the tall iron fence that marks the end of the beach, the outlines of what is left of Gaza’s Beit Lahia resort are clearly visible less than 2 miles south down the coast – as are the watchful Israeli destroyers out to sea.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas gunmen used speedboats to land on Zikim with the goal of capturing the nearby military training base.
In the ensuing violence, 17 civilians were killed on the beach, including fishers, teenagers on a camping trip and a group that had held a beach party the previous night.
The beach and its burnt-out showers, shelters and lifeguard tower, were closed off to the public by the Israeli military.
Work started in March to rebuild the facilities to the background noise of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed an estimated 67,000 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa said Thursday in Ramallah that the Palestinian Authority’s plan would build directly on an Arab-led initiative announced in March.
He stressed that rebuilding should be “anchored in Palestinian national ownership and leadership.” Israeli and US officials rejected that plan at the time.
Though he did not mention them directly, Mustafa’s remarks stood in contrast to proposals that would place Gaza under an internationally supervised transitional governance led by a technocratic, apolitical committee.
The Ramallah-based authority hasn’t controlled Gaza since Hamas seized power in 2007 and is mistrusted by both Israel’s right-wing government and many Palestinians.
Mustafa said the PA’s program aims to rebuild Gaza and better connect it with the occupied West Bank, which it currently administers. He said the plan includes restoring an estimated $67 billion in damage.
“Recovery will not only restore homes, schools, hospitals and infrastructure,” Mustafa said. “Hopefully it will also restore hope for our people, strengthen governance, empower communities and build resilience against future shocks.”
Palestinians walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, earlier today.
International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday urged all parties to continue moving in the direction of a sustained lasting peace after a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit the entire region, Reuters reports.
Georgieva, speaking during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, said she was relieved when the recent ceasefire was reached, noting that lowered tensions would be good news for the economies of Egypt and Jordan, where the IMF has programmes, and Lebanon and Syria, which have asked for help and support from the global lender.
She said:
It is important that everybody concerned encourages this direction of sustaining a lasting peace, and yes, it would benefit the region.
Dr Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset, representing the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) since 2019
Last Monday, when the US president, Donald Trump, addressed the Knesset alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, my compatriot lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I raised a banner calling them to “Recognise Palestine”. We were brutally expelled by force from the parliament’s plenum, revealing the fragile state of the supposed “only democracy in the Middle East”. How can Trump and Netanyahu speak of peace in the Middle East without recognition of the people deprived for decades of their basic liberties and rights under vicious occupation?
Nowhere is the deceit more clear than in the occupied West Bank. There, the words of peace are but a weak and distant voice, but the horrifying sounds of settler violence and terror still echo loudly. More than 30 occurrences of settler violence against Palestinians have been documented since the announcement of Trump’s 20-point plan at the end of September, including physical assaults, theft of agricultural produce and torching of vehicles and property.
The rise of settler terrorism is not coincidental. This period marks the start of the harvest seasons. More than a vital economic event, it is an important social and national moment that exhibits endurance under occupation. Precisely for these reasons, year after year settlers target Palestinians during this precious time. During the 2024 harvest period, Yesh Din (an Israeli human rights group that collects and disseminates information regarding violations of Palestinians’ human rights in the West Bank) documented 113 separate incidents of violence, harassment, harvest-thwarting or damage to olive trees and crops involving Israeli civilians and soldiers, which took place on lands belonging to 51 Palestinian villages, towns and communities.
Yesh Din also found that “Israeli security forces appeared to have played a greater role in obstructing the olive harvest”. In about 70% of forceful prevention of access to lands, soldiers, border police officers and settlement civilian security coordinators (CSCs) were actually present. They either personally prevented Palestinians from accessing and harvesting in their own lands, or failed to stop settlers who harassed or assaulted them.
This comes as no surprise, as the leader of the settlers’ political party, Bezalel Smotrich, was appointed as an additional minister in the Ministry of Defence in charge of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). In Umm al-Khair, for example, a special COGAT unit uprooted private olive trees of Palestinians, citing lack of permits, but ignored violations of an illegal nearby settler outpost. Last week, the Jerusalem district court ruled to halt all building work in the outpost, which was built on lands seized by Israel and unlawfully transferred to settlers.
You can read the full piece from Dr Ofer Cassif here: While the eyes of the world are on Gaza, Israeli settlers in the West Bank still behave with impunity
Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Thursday that Israel remained committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, Reuters reports.
He also demanded that Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over.
The comment comes after Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, bringing the total number handed over to 120, the Hamas-run health ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said.
Below are some of the latest images from the Middle East coming to us through the wires:
A former Israeli hostage said on Thursday that all Gaza captives could have returned home “a long time ago”, as relatives of newly released hostages described the torment endured by their loved ones, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Arbel Yehud was held in captivity for nearly 500 days before being freed earlier this year under a previous Gaza truce.
She spoke on Thursday at a press conference alongside families of newly freed hostages, including her partner Ariel Cunio, released this week along with the remaining living captives.
We could have brought them back a long time ago.
While we are here, fortunate to embrace our loved ones, there are dozens of families that never will.
She added the deal that was brokered by US president Donald Trump could have been struck earlier, in turn saving the lives of more hostages.
A vocal critic of the Israeli government, Yehud has participated in rallies calling for a ceasefire and the return of hostages.
Earlier this year, she accused authorities of endangering captives by stalling negotiations.
Yehud’s own release in January was marked by chaotic scenes, with television footage showing masked gunmen struggling to clear a path for her through crowds gathered to witness the exchange.
Updated
Yemen’s Houthis said on Thursday that their chief of staff Muhammad Abd Al-Karim al-Ghamari was killed, without further details.
Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Thursday identified the remains of two more hostages returned from Gaza, as officials and families warned Hamas to hand over the bodies of those still held.
The Israeli military said the bodies were those of Nova music festivalgoer Inbar Hayman and Sgt. Muhammad al-Atresh, who were killed in fighting on 7 October, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, igniting the war.
Amid a fragile truce that paused the two-year war, Palestinians were awaiting a long-promised surge of aid into Gaza, and plans for an international force to deploy there were beginning to take shape.
Since Monday’s exchange, Hamas has returned 10 bodies, nine of which Israel’s military has identified as hostages. Israel said there were 28 total in Gaza before the exchange.
Afternoon summary
Here is an overview of today’s developments so far:
A senior Hamas official on Thursday accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops “opened fire to remove the threat”.
Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, bringing the total number handed over to 120, the Hamas-run health ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said. Under a ceasefire deal brokered by US president Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.
Hamas has announced that the remains of all the deceased Israeli hostages that it can reach have been handed back and it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from Gaza’s ruins, amid threats from Israel to resume fighting if the terms of ceasefire are not honoured. Two further bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, after Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages – along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.
Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage. Israel had earlier warned it could keep Rafah shut and reduce aid into the Palestinian territory as Hamas, it said, was returning the bodies of dead hostages too slowly, underlining the risks to a ceasefire that halted two years of devastating war and saw all living hostages held by Hamas released.
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday cited Gaza as an example of the world’s failure to stop millions of people going hungry, blaming a “soulless economy” and calling on people to rethink their lifestyles and priorities. The crisis was “a clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, a soulless economy,” Leo told the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) at an event to mark its 80th anniversary.
Thaslima Begum is an award-winning journalist with a focus on women, conflict and human rights
In June 2024, an Israeli missile struck 13-year-old Mazyouna Damoo’s apartment in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, hurling her and her mother into the street.
Her younger sister, Tala, was pulled from beneath the rubble alive, but her other siblings – Hala, 13, and Mohannad, 10 – were killed instantly. Mazyouna survived, but half of her face was ripped off, leaving her jawbone exposed.
More than a year on, Mazyouna’s journey and ongoing recovery in a hospital in the US has become a rare story of hope from the two-year Gaza war that has now entered a ceasefire. But it was a recovery that almost never happened.
With Gaza’s hospitals overwhelmed and unable to provide advanced reconstructive surgery, her family’s pleas last year for evacuation became desperate. For months, her parents appealed to the Israeli body overseeing humanitarian permits to allow Mazyouna to leave Gaza for treatment. Each request was either ignored or rejected.
During this time, her wounds worsened, becoming infected, and fragments of shrapnel embedded in her face caused excruciating pain. After the Guardian reported on her ordeal, Israel finally permitted her to leave to get surgical care.
You can read the full piece from Thaslima Begum here: At 12 an Israeli missile ‘ripped off’ her face. Now Mazyouna is safe in the US – but not all the scars have healed
Israel returns bodies of 30 Palestinians
Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, bringing the total number handed over to 120, the Hamas-run health ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Under a ceasefire deal brokered by US president Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.
Many of the 90 bodies of Palestinians that were previously returned to Gaza by Israeli authorities under the ceasefire deal showed signs of torture and execution, including blindfolds, cuffed hands and bullet wounds in the head, according to doctors’ accounts.
Updated
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the remains of 19 hostages are still unaccounted for, with Hamas saying it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from the ruins of Gaza.
Under a ceasefire agreement spearheaded by US president Donald Trump, Hamas returned the last 20 surviving hostages to Israel, and said it had handed back all the bodies of deceased captives that it could access.
Updated
Sondos Sabra is a writer and translator based in Gaza
The war has ended, and it’s time for me to return to my coffee, my bread and my poetry. Yet I don’t know what it means to return to life, after death has lived within us down to the marrow. Death had us memorised by heart, reciting our names one by one with unwavering precision. We grew accustomed to it too, in all its forms and colours, until funerals became a daily ritual, much like a weather report we already know by heart. It rained death every day, and our homes scattered like dry leaves in an autumn wind.
But another war has begun, of a different kind, more ruthless. The battles no longer take place only in the streets, but in every moment of life, in every step across the rubble, in every attempt to reclaim what remains of our daily spirit. The first chapter of this new war was the brutal anticipation of the roads leading to what remains of homes, or heaps of stones. With the destruction stretching as far as the eye can see, the roads guided us toward what is left of ourselves and our memory.
Now, if Israel allows us to live, death will pour meaning into life. We must repair our dictionaries, reclaim our morning rituals, let the plates return to their tables and the road regain its usual calm on the way to school. And I must dust off my knees and ride the horse once more.
Meanwhile, Salam, my uncle’s granddaughter, is discovering food for the very first time. She touches its colours and explores its flavours with her tiny senses. Having grown up on lentils alone, since the day she was born, she now finds fruit and vegetables available in Gaza’s markets with the ceasefire. When we handed her a banana, she didn’t know what to do with it and tried to eat it with the peel on. Then she tried an apple, and new words began slipping into her little food dictionary, as if each bite were opening a whole new world of life for her.
You can read more of the piece from Sondos Sabra here: In Gaza, we are picking up our lives amid the remnants of war, fear of Israel’s return haunting every step
Hamas accuses Israel of breaching ceasefire by 'killing at least 24 people' since Friday
A senior Hamas official on Thursday accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators, Reuters reports.
He said:
The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops “opened fire to remove the threat”.
A row over the return of bodies of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza retains the potential to upend the truce along with other major planks of the plan yet to be resolved, including disarmament of militants and Gaza’s future governance.
Israel demanded that Hamas fulfil its obligations in turning over the unrecovered bodies of all 28 hostages who died during the war. The Islamist faction said it had handed over 10 bodies but Israel said one of them was not that of a hostage.
“We will not compromise on this, and we will spare no effort until our fallen hostages return, every last one of them,” Israel’s government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, which was reduced to vast tracts of rubble by the war, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the Israel-blockaded Palestinian territory.
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday cited Gaza as an example of the world’s failure to stop millions of people going hungry, blaming a “soulless economy” and calling on people to rethink their lifestyles and priorities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Leo said in a speech at the Rome-based UN agricultural agency:
Allowing millions of human beings to live – and die – victims of hunger is a collective failure, an ethical aberration, a historical sin.
The scourge of hunger … continues to atrociously plague a significant portion of humanity.
The crisis was “a clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, a soulless economy,” Leo told the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) at an event to mark its 80th anniversary.
He cited in particular “Ukraine, Gaza, Haiti, Afghanistan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Yemen, and South Sudan,” among other countries “where poverty has become the daily bread”.
He also lambasted the fact that people seem “to have forgotten” that using starvation as a weapon is a war crime.
Israel has been previously accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
Updated
Israel will achieve all goals of the Gaza war it had set out to accomplish, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
The prime minister was speaking at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery, marking the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war.
He was reported in Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying:
We are determined to secure the return of all hostages.
The fight is not over yet, but one thing is clear – whoever lays a hand on us knows they will pay a very heavy price. We are determined to win a victory that will shape our surroundings for many years.
Updated
Below are some of the latest photos from the Middle East coming through to us from the wires:
Updated
Sirens were activated in Israel’s Red Sea city of Eilat after the suspected hostile infiltration of an aircraft, the Israeli military said on Thursday, but later said it was a “false identification”, Reuters reports.
Jason Burke is the International security correspondent of the Guardian
Even if the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza opens on Thursday, NGOs face big challenges distributing supplies to Gaza City and its surroundings in the north, the areas worst hit by hunger, experts say.
Key roads are virtually impassable due to the massive destruction across the devastated territory – or are still controlled by Israeli forces. Any truck that breaks down is likely to be instantly looted.
Zikim, the main entry point to the north of the territory, devastated by two years of war with Israel, has been closed for several weeks, and Israeli officials have told NGOs in Gaza that there are no immediate plans to open the crossing, aid workers said.
Gaza City was the target of a major Israeli offensive launched in August that was still under way when the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was signed a week ago.
“Any opening of a crossing into Gaza is welcome, but we need to make sure we can reach people where they are,” said Katy Crosby, senior director of policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, an NGO.
“If we don’t see more access, we will just be maintaining the status quo at best. We won’t see a reduction in looting and we will see more displacement as people move to where there is more aid.”
You can read more of the piece from Jason Bourke here: Challenges remain for aid distribution in Gaza City despite ceasefire with Israel
An Israeli group campaigning for the return of all hostages held in Gaza on Thursday demanded that the government delay implementing the next stages of the truce if Hamas fails to return the remaining captives’ bodies, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government to “immediately halt the implementation of any further stages of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to blatantly violate its obligations regarding the return of all hostages and the remains of the victims”.
According to the framework outlined by US president Donald Trump, the next phases of the truce include, among other things, offering amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons.
Julian Borger is the Guardian’s senior international correspondent
Palestine’s most popular leader, Marwan Barghouti, was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards and his family fears for his life, his son has said, citing evidence given by former Palestinian detainees released this week as part of the ceasefire deal.
Arab Barghouti said his 66-year-old father was assaulted by eight guards on 14 September as he was being transferred between Ganot and Megiddo prisons.
Barghouti said that five of the Palestinian prisoners released and deported to Egypt by the Israeli authorities on Monday had heard the Palestinian leader’s account of his treatment when he arrived in Megiddo prison.
“What we know is that while they were transferring my father, they stopped along the way and eight security guards within the prison authority that worked for the prison authority started beating my father up in different ways, by kicking him, by [throwing] him on the ground, by punching him, focusing on the head area, chest area and legs as well,” he said, adding that his father later told fellow prisoners he lost consciousness as a result of the attack.
“The released detainees say that when he came to Megiddo he could barely walk for days.”
Barghouti said it was the fourth time his father had been beaten over the past two years. The Palestinian leader has been held in solitary confinement since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, which ignited the Gaza war. Barghouti is a member of the Fatah party, a bitter rival of Hamas.
You can read the full piece from Julian Borger here: Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti assaulted by Israeli prison guards, son says
Photos show trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossing from Egypt’s side of the Rafah border crossing into the buffer zone.
Israel has warned it could keep the crossing shut and reduce aid supplies if Hamas returned the bodies of hostages too slowly.
Dozens of other trucks remain waiting on the Egyptian side as Israel keeps the crossing closed to full access into Gaza.
Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage.
Updated
The director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza has said he has not witnessed any notable progress in the quality of health services or the availability of medicines since the ceasefire began, Al Jazeera reports.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya told the outlet that the health situation remains tragic and that released prisoners required special medical attention after being held in Israeli prisons.
The father of 18-year-old Hassan who says his son was shot in the head over two months ago in Gaza while out seeking food hopes that the reopening of the Rafah border point will save him, Reuters reports.
Ibrahim Qlob told Reuters in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis where Hassan lies motionless in bed, his eyes covered with bandages:
The Rafah crossing is our lifeline, for patients and for the Gaza Strip.
I’m waiting. One day passing for me feels like a year.
The injury reportedly caused a brain haemorrhage, necessitating the removal of part of his skull. A later infection caused him to lose sight in his right eye, his father said.
Now that a fragile ceasefire is taking hold between Israel and Hamas after two years of war, Hassan is just one of 15,600 Gazan patients waiting evacuation, including 3,800 children, according to the World Health Organization.
Many like him suffer from injuries sustained during the conflict. Others have chronic conditions like cancer and heart disease which the decimated health system cannot cope with.
Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage.
Israel had earlier warned it could keep Rafah shut and reduce aid into the Palestinian territory as Hamas, it said, was returning the bodies of dead hostages too slowly, underlining the risks to a ceasefire that halted two years of devastating war and saw all living hostages held by Hamas released.
COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the Gaza Strip, said humanitarian aid continued to enter the territory via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, and at other crossings.
The agency added in a statement sent to Reuters:
It should be emphasised that humanitarian aid will not pass through the Rafah crossing. This was never agreed upon at any stage
Two sources had told Reuters on Wednesday that the Rafah crossing was expected to open for people on Thursday. The claims were unable to be independently verified by the Guardian.
Updated
A Palestinian rights group has claimed that the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza is still being held “hostage” by Israel, Al Jazeera reports.
Dr Hussam Abu Safia, was reportedly abducted by Israeli forces in December 2024.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said in a statement that the director is being held in an Israeli prison, urging international allies to assist and make Israel “end its systematic and widespread use of arbitrary detention and the unlawful holding of Palestinians as hostages”.
The group said:
The prolonged detention without charges of Dr Abu Safia, amid documented accounts of torture, inhumane detention conditions, and the absence of any indication of release, indicates that he is being held as a hostage.
Al Mezan warns that Israel may be using his detention, along with that of thousands of other Palestinians, as political leverage in ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
The Israeli army announced on Thursday that it had identified the remains of hostages, Inbar Hayman and Mohammad al-Atrash, whose bodies had been returned to Israel the previous evening by Hamas, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
An army statement said:
Following the completion of the identification process by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine … (Israeli military) representatives informed the families of Inbar Hayman and Sergeant Major Mohammad al-Atrash that their bodies had been returned for burial.
Inbar Hayman, a graffiti artist from Haifa known by the pseudonym “Pink”, was 27 when she was killed at the Nova music festival. Her remains were taken to Gaza. The remains of Sergeant Maj Mohammad al-Atrash, a 39-year-old soldier of Bedouin origin who was killed in combat on 7 October, were also taken to the Palestinian territory.
Defence minister Israel Katz extended his condolences to the families “on behalf of the entire defence establishment” in a post on X.
He added:
Inbar was abducted from the Nova festival and assassinated by Hamas murderers on October 7, and Mohammad fell in battle after defending the division’s soldiers with supreme heroism
The office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government “shares in the deep sorrow” of the two families and all the families of the fallen hostages.
The statement added:
The Hamas terrorist organisation is required to uphold its commitments to the mediators and return (the hostages) as part of the implementation of the agreement. We will not compromise on this.
Updated
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for the Guardian
As the world waits to see if the Gaza ceasefire holds, the role of Qatar, one of the four guarantors of the agreement, is absolutely central.
Probably more than any other country, the vastly wealthy Gulf state holds influence over what Hamas may choose to do in future. This stems from its complicated twin status as an Israeli-endorsed mediator and a unilateral conduit for aid and cash to Hamas in Gaza. For more than a decade, Qatar has also hosted the political leadership of Hamas in Doha.
By signing the New York declaration on 29 July along with other Arab states, Qatar for the first time agreed to the principle of Hamas ending its rule in Gaza and handing over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA) “in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state”.
It also “condemned the attacks committed by Hamas against civilians on the 7th of October”, in a significant step that brought Qatar’s position closer to those of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
But it is not just in its formal statements that Qatar has started to demand more of Hamas. Editorial management changes were recently introduced at Al Jazeera, the hugely influential Qatari-owned media empire that became “the voice of the resistance” through the Middle East. Al Jazeera’s portrayal of Hamas had become more nuanced. In private discussions, too, Qatar’s leaders applied new levels of pressure on Hamas’s political leadership.
You can read the full piece from Patrick Wintour here: Mediator in chief: how role of Qatar will be central to Gaza ceasefire holding
Hamas says it has returned all hostage bodies it can reach for now
Hamas has announced that the remains of all the deceased Israeli hostages that it can reach have been handed back and it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from Gaza’s ruins, amid threats from Israel to resume fighting if the terms of ceasefire are not honoured.
Two further bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, after Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages – along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.
Soon after, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on social media that the group had “fulfilled its commitment to the agreement by handing over all living Israeli prisoners in its custody, as well as the corpses it could access … as for the remaining corpses, it requires extensive efforts and special equipment for their retrieval and extraction.”
Since Monday, under a ceasefire agreement brokered by US president Donald Trump, Hamas has handed back 20 surviving hostages to Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails.
Israel’s defence minister threatened on Wednesday to resume fighting if Hamas does not honour the continuing terms of the deal.
“If Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the United States, will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war,” a statement from Israel Katz’s office said.
Seeking to keep the pressure on Hamas, Trump said he would consider allowing Israeli forces to resume fighting in Gaza if Hamas fails to uphold its end of the ceasefire deal that he brokered.
“Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word. If Israel could go in and knock the crap of them, they’d do that,” Trump was quoted as saying to CNN in a brief telephone call when asked what would happen if Hamas refused to disarm.
After the threat from Katz, senior US advisers briefed the media late on Wednesday that Hamas was aiming to stick to its pledge to return the bodies of dead hostages.
You can read the full story here: Hamas says all reachable hostage bodies recovered amid Israel threat to resume Gaza fighting
Updated
Hamas says it cannot retrieve further bodies of hostages
Hamas has handed over the remains of two more deceased hostages and said it will be unable to retrieve any more bodies from Gaza’s ruins without specialised equipment.
Israel threatened to resume fighting because of the limited number of bodies given back – well short of the US-backed ceasefire’s demand to hand over all of the remains – but senior US advisers later said Hamas aimed to stick to its pledge to return the dead captives.
The militant group’s armed wing said the two bodies returned late on Wednesday would be the last for now but that it was “exerting great effort” to retrieve others.
Aid trucks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday and Israel reportedly resumed preparations to open the main Rafah crossing after warning it could keep it shut and reduce aid due to bodies being returned too slowly. An Israeli official said 600 aid trucks would go in.
The US advisers were quoted as saying retrieving the bodies from Gaza was difficult because the territory had been “pulverised” and specialised equipment would be needed to get them out.
“We continue to hear from them that they intend to honour the deal,” one of the advisers said on condition of anonymity on Wednesday when asked if Hamas would stick to the agreement. “They want to see the deal completed in that regard.”
In other key developments:
Trump said he would consider allowing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume military action in Gaza if Hamas refused to uphold its end of the agreement, telling CNN that Israeli forces could return to the streets “as soon as I say the word”. But the US president also said at the Oval Office when asked if Hamas was sticking to the deal: “They’re digging. They’re finding a lot of bodies.”
The Israeli army said on Thursday it had identified the remains of the two hostages, Inbar Hayman and Mohammad al-Atrash, returned on Wednesday night. Before that handover Hamas had returned the remains of seven of the 28 known deceased hostages, along with an eighth body that Israel said was not a former hostage.
The Israeli government had threatened to halt the opening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt on Thursday, actions criticised as “outrageous” by aid agencies. As trucks loaded up with aid lined up on the Egyptian side on Wednesday, the key crossing remained closed.
Aid agencies warned the humanitarian situation on the ground remains at crisis point, while Unicef said it was still waiting for aid deliveries to surge. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher was expected to head to the Rafah crossing on Thursday.
Israel returned the bodies of 45 Palestinians and work to identify them was under way in Gaza. It took the total to 90 so far.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed three Palestinians on Wednesday, including two trying to reach their homes in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood. The Israeli military said “several suspects were identified crossing the yellow line and approaching” troops in northern Gaza, referencing the line Israeli forces have pulled back to under the ceasefire.
A senior US military leader called on Hamas to stop violence against civilians and to “disarm without delay”, as the militant group reasserts itself by deploying security forces and executing those it deems collaborators with Israel.
With agencies
Updated
