KHAN YOUNIS
\nIsrael returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Friday, officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said, in the latest step to fulfilling the terms of the fragile US-brokered ceasefire agreement.
\nThe bodies were returned after militants late Thursday handed over the body of one of the last four remaining Israeli hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that launched the war in Gaza.
\nIsrael identified the returned body as that of Meny Godard, who was abducted from Kibbutz Be\u2019eri in southern Israel. His wife, Ayelet, was killed during the attack.
\nThe armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said Godard\u2019s body was recovered in southern Gaza.
\nThe remains of 25 hostages have been returned to Israel since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 10. There are still three more in Gaza that need to be recovered and handed over. Hamas returned 20 living hostages to Israel on Oct. 13.
\nFor each hostage returned, Israel has released the remains of 15 Palestinians, an exchange central to the ceasefire\u2019s first phase.
\nOverall, the number of bodies of Palestinians received so far is 330, of which only 95 have been formally identified, according to Gaza Health Ministry officials.
\nHealth officials in Gaza have said identifying the remains handed over by Israel is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits.
\nThe exchanges have gone ahead even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating other terms of the deal. Israel has accused Hamas of handing over partial remains in some instances and staging the discovery of bodies in others, while Hamas has accused Israel of opening fire at civilians and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory.
\nUN human rights chief says settler violence must end
\nThe UN\u2019s human rights chief, Volker T\u00fcrk, on Friday joined a chorus of condemnation over a recent string of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, urging an end to the violence and for Israel to hold the perpetrators accountable.
\nUN Human Rights Commissioner spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said T\u00fcrk also called on Israel to end its \u201cunlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory,\u201d immediately stop all new settlement activities and evacuate all settlers.
\nAl-Kheetan said more than 206 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians were recorded in October, more than in any month since 2006.
\n\u201cWe reiterate that the Israeli government\u2019s assertion of sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and its annexation of parts of it are in breach of international law, as the International Court of Justice has confirmed,\u201d said Al-Kheetan.
\nIsraeli settlers on Thursday torched and defaced a mosque in a Palestinian village in the central West Bank. That followed violence two days earlier during which dozens of masked Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles and other property in the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf.
\nThe attacks on the two Palestinian villages prompted Israeli President Isaac Herzog to denounce them as \u201cshocking and serious.\u201d Israeli army\u2019s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said the military \u201cwill not tolerate the phenomena of a minority of criminals who tarnish a law-abiding public.\u201d
\nUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that there\u2019s concern that the events in the West Bank \u201ccould undermine what we\u2019re doing in Gaza.\u201d
\nIsraeli officials have sought to cast settler violence as the work of a few extremists. But Palestinians and rights groups say that the violence is widespread and carried out by settlers across the territory, with impunity from Israel\u2019s far-right government, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hasn\u2019t commented on the surge in violence.
\nMeanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said six teenagers \u2014 aged 15 to 17 \u2014 were shot and killed by Israeli fire in four separate incidents over the last two weeks. In the most recent incident Thursday, two 15 year-old boys where killed near the village of Beit Ummar.
\nThe Israeli military said in three of the four incidents, its soldiers were responding to \u201cterrorists\u201d hurling either Molotov cocktails or explosives, or were in the process of carrying out a \u201cterror attack.\u201d In one incident, the military said troops acting according to \u201cstandard operating procedures\u201d opened fire against Palestinians throwing rocks to \u201cremove the threat.\u201d
\nWhat\u2019s next for Gaza
\nThe next parts of the 20-point plan call for creating an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and disarming Hamas.
\nThe fragile agreement aims to wind down the war that was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
\nIsrael responded with a sweeping military offensive that has killed more than 69,100 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KHAN YOUNIS Israel returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Friday, officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said, in the latest step to fulfilling the terms of the fragile US-brokered ceasefire agreement. The bodies were returned after militants late Thursday handed over the body of one of the last four remaining Israeli […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-514600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n