Hamas's armed wing said it would hand over the remains of two hostages held in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Israel made the reopening of a crossing into Egypt crucial to the devastated Palestinian territory conditional on the handover of all deceased hostages.
• Also read: Gaza: Hamas returns remains and pledges to return all hostage bodies to Israel
Ezzidin al-Qassam's brigades will surrender their positions at 19:00. GMT “the bodies of two Israeli prisoners whose remains were found in the Gaza Strip today,” according to a statement published on their Telegram channel.
Shortly before this, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt “will be considered depending on how Hamas fulfills its obligations to return the hostages and bodies of the dead, as well as the implementation of the agreed framework.”
The passage into Egypt, requested by humanitarian agencies because it is critical to the flow of aid, “will be closed 'until further notice,'” the same source indicated in a press release.
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher visited Gaza City on Saturday, devastated by two years of war, and witnessed the monumental challenge facing international aid agencies in providing basic services and food.
The first senior UN official to visit the Gaza Strip since the October 10 ceasefire, Mr Fletcher arrived in the city of the same name aboard a convoy of white UN jeeps through the rubble of destroyed houses.
“I was here seven or eight months ago. Most of these buildings were still standing. But here it is absolutely terrible to see how much of the city has become desolate,” he told AFP in the Sheikh Raduan district, where he was inspecting a wastewater treatment plant.
Photo by AFP
Much of Palestinian territory was destroyed during the Israeli offensive launched in response to the unprecedentedly brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli army controls all access to the Gaza Strip. The ceasefire agreement, based on Donald Trump's plan, provides for more needed humanitarian aid for populations lacking everything.
“We now have an ambitious 60-day plan to increase food supplies, distribute a million meals a day, start rebuilding the health sector, set up tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of children back to school,” Mr Fletcher said.
Hostage's body identified
The UN spokesman said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (Ocha) faces a “huge task (…) but we owe it to the people here who have been through a lot.” There is “a huge, huge amount of work to be done.”
On the ground, emergency services are working to recover the bodies of Palestinians buried under the rubble, while Hamas searches for the remains of hostages it has not yet handed over to Israel.
AFP
To help with the search, a team from Turkey's disaster management agency is waiting on the Egyptian side of the border to arrive in the Gaza Strip, the Turkish official said.
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas was required to release all hostages it was holding, living and dead, no later than 09:00 Monday, October 13, GMT.
He released the last 20 living hostages in time, but since Monday has returned only ten remains of the 28 he held.
On Saturday, Israeli authorities announced that they had identified the remains handed over the day before by Hamas. This is Eliyahu Margalit, a septuagenarian man killed on October 7 during an attack by Hamas and its allies.
In exchange, the Israeli army handed over the bodies of 15 Palestinians.
Emergency services say nine people have died in the Gaza Strip.
Israel reiterated that it would “spare no effort until all the dead hostages are returned,” accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement after delaying their handover.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Kassem confirmed the movement's commitment to handing over all the hostages' remains, but stressed that the issue “takes time.”
The Islamist movement also condemned Israel's “numerous violations of the agreement.”
Nine Palestinians were killed Friday when Israeli fire hit a bus carrying displaced people in Gaza City, according to the Hamas-led Civil Defense. The Israeli army said its soldiers fired at a “suspicious” vehicle.
A later stage of Trump's plan calls for disarmament of Hamas, an amnesty or expulsion of its militants and a continued Israeli troop withdrawal – issues that remain subject to debate.
The Oct. 7 attack killed 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official data.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed 68,116 people, most of them civilians, and has created a humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
More than 400 bodies have been found buried under rubble in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip since the ceasefire began, the health minister said. Local authorities estimate that about 10,000 bodies are still buried there.
