Idit Ohel, the mother of released hostage Alon Ohel, told a press conference at Beilinson Hospital near Tel Aviv that doctors were hopeful he could regain sight after he suffered an eye injury in Gaza.
Ohel’s mother also said that it was the solidarity of strangers who supported him that gave him the strength to survive in captivity. She said: “We always knew he had the emotional ability to survive, but honestly, his abilities were beyond anything we could imagine.”
Ohel has lived for two years with shrapnel in his head and right eye, which has left him with limited vision. But his mother said that medical staff believed his eyesight could be improved significantly.
She thanked their family and friends, and “our nation who stood with us, and didn’t stop for a moment, saying ‘You’re not alone, we’re with you.’
“You were the light at the end of our tunnel and Alon’s tunnel, because of you, we were not alone.”
UN diplomat calls for ‘immediate’ opening of aid crossings
Tom Fletcher, a British diplomat who is the UN under-secretary-general of humanitarian affairs, said that Israel should immediately open crossings into Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.
In an interview in Cairo, he told reporters: “We’ve been calling for unhindered access. It should happen now. We want it to happen immediately as part of this [ceasefire] agreement.
Speaking of the agreement signed by world leaders on Monday in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Fletcher added: “But the test of this agreement is not the photos and the press conferences and the interviews. The test is that we have children fed, that we have anaesthetics in the hospitals for people getting treatment, that we have tents over people’s heads.”
Fletcher will visit the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to observe preparations being made there for the delivery of aid. It has stayed shut on Wednesday despite reports that it could open to aid convoys.
Israel has insisted that Hamas hand over the remaining bodies of deceased hostages before it would allow the flow of humanitarian aid in these crossings.
Netanyahu expected to run unopposed in his party’s upcoming election
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will run for reelection within his Likud party unopposed.
Local media is reporting the far-right party will hold a vote next week on whether to go ahead with the party’s leadership primary on November 25.
Central Committee members of Netanyahu’s party are due to meet on October 23 to approve an election timeline and appoint an internal oversight committee which will monitor the primary.
According to the reports, Netanyahu is expected to run in the primary uncontested in a move to renew his mandate as leader of the party and eliminate any challengers within Likud ahead of national elections, which are set to take place by October 2026.
NYC’s pro-Palestinian activists: We will never forgive the vile Zionists
For hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, the ceasefire brokered by President Trump signals a moment to celebrate. But for the pro-Palestine movement in New York City, the fight has only just begun (writes Bevan Hurley).
On Monday night in midtown Manhattan, about 200 activists and volunteers gathered at the People’s Forum, a ground-floor community space tucked between glass office towers that has become the city’s headquarters for the Palestinian struggle.
• Read in full: NYC’s pro-Palestinian activists: We will never forgive the vile Zionists
‘Israeli forces still shooting at people in Gaza’
People are still coming into hospitals in Gaza after being shot by Israeli forces, a Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator has claimed.
Caroline Willemen, who is currently in Deir al-Balah in Gaza, told Times Radio that “a lot less” wounded people are coming into emergency rooms, but “it’s not zero”.
“We do still receive people with gunshot wounds who have approached the so-called yellow line too closely, who have been shot at by the Israeli forces,” she said. “Keeping in mind that many people don’t really know where this line is. This is also a result of confusion.”
She also said there are still issues with getting “vital equipment” which the Israeli authorities call “dual-use items” into Gaza, including equipment for water purification and sterilization.
US commander tells Hamas to stop shooting Palestinians
The top US commander in the Middle East demanded on Wednesday that Hamas stop shooting Palestinian civilians after the militant group held public executions of alleged collaborators.
“We strongly urge Hamas to immediately suspend violence and shooting at innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza — in both Hamas-held parts of Gaza and those secured by the IDF behind the Yellow Line,” US Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper said in a statement.
Cooper urged Hamas to seize the “historic opportunity for peace” by “fully standing down, strictly adhering to President Trump’s 20-point peace plan, and disarming without delay.”
Hamas has published a video on its official channel showing the shooting of eight blindfolded and kneeling suspects, branding them “collaborators and outlaws”.
The footage, apparently from Monday evening, emerged as armed clashes were underway between Hamas’s various security units and armed Palestinian clans, some alleged to have Israeli backing.
In the north of the territory, as Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza City, the Hamas government’s black-masked armed police resumed street patrols.
“Our message is clear: There will be no place for outlaws or those who threaten the security of citizens,” a Palestinian security source in Gaza told AFP.
Israel and the United States have insisted Hamas can have no role in a future Gaza government.
Israel returns 45 more bodies to Gaza health ministry
The Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, has now confirmed that Israel returned the bodies of 45 more Palestinians on Wednesday, meaning 90 have been returned since Monday.
Under a ceasefire deal brokered by President Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.
On Monday, Hamas gave up three Israeli bodies and that of one Nepalese citizen for transfer and on Tuesday three more Israelis and one as yet unidentified body that the military says was not that of a known hostage were returned to Israel.
US ‘will not allow Israel to renew war’
The US “will not allow Israel to renew the war”, according to an Israeli negotiator.
Gershon Baskin told Times Radio that he believes Hamas and the Israeli army do not want to renew the war, but there are people in the Israeli government who are calling for the war to recommence.
“A lot of the emphasis in the negotiations that I was part of, at least, was about the guarantees that Israel would not renew the war once the living hostages are released,” he said.
“I think that President Trump was very firm with Prime Minister Netanyahu that this is the end of the war, and the United States of America will not allow Israel to renew the war.”
Freed hostages have ‘severe but treatable nutrition problems’
Some of the hostages who survived 738 days in Hamas captivity have “severe but treatable nutrition problems”, according to one of the hospitals treating them.
Dr Michal Steinman, director of nursing at Rabin Medical Centre, told The Times of Israel that “the body remembers those 700-plus days of captivity and starvation”, but added that she feels “very optimistic” about the hostages’ recovery.
“It’s going to be a very long road, and there are going to be ups and downs, but I think each one of them developed really special techniques of survival and how to keep their mind and soul guarded,” she said of the five men being treated at the hospital.
“Medically, right now, we don’t have any surprises,” she added. “The hostages interact, they smile. They came with a big drive to heal, recover, and rehabilitate.”
More Palestinian remains collected from Israel
Red Cross vehicles escort lorries transporting the bodies of deceased Palestinians through the ruins of Khan Yunis
MAHMOUD ISSA/REUTERS
Red Cross vehicles have collected more bodies of Palestinians from Israel and are returning them to Gaza as part of an exchange enabled by the ceasefire.
Images showed a convoy of International Committee of the Red Cross vehicles driving past ruined buildings in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza.
Earlier, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said some of the 45 bodies previously returned by Israel showed signs of torture, mutilation and field execution.
Medical sources also told Al Jazeera that signs of tracks appeared on the bodies, suggesting some of them had been run over by Israeli vehicles.
Israel has not commented on the claims.
Israel ‘will not compromise on dead hostages’ return’
Israel “will not compromise” on the return of all hostages held by Hamas, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
“Hamas … is required to uphold its commitments to the mediators and return all of our hostages as part of the implementation of this agreement,” Shosh Bedrosian said at a news conference.
Under a US-brokered plan, Hamas released all 20 surviving hostages to Israel on Monday but so far has returned just seven of an expected 28 dead captives.
“We will not compromise on this, and we will spare no effort until our fallen hostages return, every last one of them.”
She confirmed that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his wife visited five of the released hostages on Tuesday night at a medical centre.
However, Netanyahu, 75, who announced he was suffering from bronchitis on Wednesday, also attracted criticism from a doctor for visiting the hostages while he was ill, which may have ‘put them at risk”.
Watch: drone footage of destruction in Khan Yunis Germany: Hamas executions are terrorism
The German foreign ministry has described a video of Hamas gunmen executing suspected collaborators in Gaza as “terrorism against the population”.
The video which emerged on Monday showed at least seven men, who were bound and kneeling, being shot by a firing squad.
“This once again clearly underlines … that Hamas is a terrorist organisation,” a ministry spokesman told reporters in Berlin. “And these arbitrary shootings are nothing less than terrorism against the population.”
The spokesman added that the shootings ran counter to the self-determination of the Palestinian people and that Hamas must be disarmed.
But he said there was still a need to deliver aid to Gaza’s population and that it was now important that sufficient humanitarian supplies reached the people.
Palestinians shop for vegetables at a market in a Gaza refugee camp on Wednesday
MOIZ SALHI/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
Gaza ‘80 per cent destroyed by Israelis’
Palestinians walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City on Wednesday
EBRAHIM HAJJAJ/REUTERS
Gaza has been 80 per cent destroyed by Israeli forces who intensified their military actions in the lead up to the ceasefire, a human rights activist living in the city has said.
Khalil Abu Shammala told Times Radio: “Let me say that Gaza is 80 per cent completely destroyed by the Israeli forces. People are going gradually to check if their homes still stand up or are destroyed.
“So many people from Gaza City will not be able to go back because there are no homes. There are no places to put tents beside their homes or in front of their homes.”
He said there is no “clear evidence” the people killed by Hamas are collaborators: “This is slaughtering and killing,” he said.
Netanyahu cancels schedule and rests at home
Binyamin Netanyahu at an earlier court hearing, last December
MENAHEM KAHANA/POOL PHOTO/AP
The Israeli prime minister’s office has now confirmed he is ill and has cleared his schedule to return home and rest.
“Prime minister Netanyahu is suffering from a respiratory infection (bronchitis), which does not pose a threat to him or those around him, and in accordance with the recommendation of his personal physician, Dr Berkowitz, the prime minister has cancelled his schedule for the rest of the day and is resting at home,” a statement said.
Netanyahu had earlier appeared at a Tel Aviv court and explained he had a cough and cold. His request to cut short his testimony was granted by the judges.
Confusion over Rafah border opening
Aid trucks are queuing at the Rafah border crossing which links Gaza to Egypt, but there are conflicting reports as to whether it will open on Wednesday to allow them in.
Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster, said that the reopening was imminent after Israel was informed of Hamas’s intention to return the remains of four more hostages on Wednesday, a move not yet confirmed by the militant group.
However an unnamed security official told the Times of Israel that the crossing would not open for aid. “Preparations are ongoing for its opening for the exit and entry of Gazans only,” he said.
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, earlier threatened to cut off aid supplies to Gaza if Hamas failed to return the remains of all hostages.
A convoy of aid lorries driving through central Gaza on Wednesday
BASHAR TALEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Nations lobbied to recognise Palestinian state
Representatives from the Palestinian Authority are touring Europe to try to convince countries that have not yet recognised a Palestinian state to do so.
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a former prime minister serving as special envoy for President Abbas, told reporters that he was trying to convince Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands to join the countries who recognise the state.
“Another delegation will be going to the Baltic states, [and] our president hopefully will visit Italy and Germany,” he told reporters in Switzerland.
“There are 34 countries that do not yet recognise Palestine. We are simply in contact with these countries trying to urge them to … be part of the countries who recognise Palestine, not part of the countries who did not recognise Palestine.”
A majority of European nations recognise a Palestinian state after official declarations last month by countries including Britain and France.
Israel and the US have criticised the move as rewarding Hamas.
Israel ‘has failed to name returned Palestinian bodies’
Just as Israeli forensics teams have identified the bodies of seven hostages — and one other individual — released by Hamas, Palestinian specialists are examining the remains of 45 bodies returned by Israel to Gaza.
Dr Mohammad Zaqout, the general director of hospitals in the territory, said Israel had not provided a list of names of the dead whose remains were released, making identification difficult.
“If we receive the names from the occupation, we will publish them,” Zaqout told the BBC, in reference to Israel.
“If not, we will be forced to create a link where photos of the identifiable martyrs will be posted, so that families can come to the field hospital at Nasser Medical Complex to identify their relatives and lay them to rest with dignity.”
Under the ceasefire, Israel had suggested it would return 15 bodies for every dead Israeli hostage released.
Israeli president meets freed brothers
The Israeli president has visited twin brothers who were released on Monday after two years in captivity. They had been kidnapped and held as hostages by Hamas.
President Herzog and his wife, Michal, met Gali and Ziv Berman, 28, at the Sheba Medical Centre near Tel Aviv, with the video published on X.
Gali confirmed that the brothers were held separately before being freed and were unaware that they would be reunited before their release.
“We didn’t know where [the other twin] was. Suddenly, they brought him out,” Gali said in the video, of the moment the two embraced each other.
“The twins, Gali and Ziv Berman, entered the hearts of an entire nation. We were thrilled to see them finally together, protected and surrounded by their loving family,” Herzog wrote on X.
He added that Israel is “waiting for everyone” to return, in reference to the bodies of deceased hostages that remain in Gaza.
Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager.
Enable cookiesAllow cookies onceIn pictures: Gaza struggles to return to normal 
Palestinians use donkey carts and a battered car to get around the shattered territory on Wednesday
DAWOUD ABU ALKAS/REUTERS
Funerals to be held for two hostages 
Vehicles carrying the bodies of hostages in Tel Aviv early on Wednesday
JAMAL AWAD/XINHUA/ALAMY LIVE NEWS
Two hostages whose bodies were released from Gaza are set to buried in Israel on Wednesday.
The family invited the public to gather along the road in the afternoon to accompany the body of one hostage from a forensics institute to a cemetery north of Tel Aviv.
In the past, tens of thousands of Israelis have lined the streets to show respect to bodies of hostages on their way for burial, standing silently with Israeli flags.
Hell will break loose if Hamas refuses to disarm, PM warns
In an interview with the US broadcaster CBS, Binyamin Netanyahu has said “all hell breaks lose” if Hamas does not disarm under the conditions of the US-backed ceasefire.
“I hope it doesn’t,” Netanyahu said in the interview broadcast on Tuesday night. “I hope we can do this peacefully. We’re certainly ready to do so.”
“First, Hamas has to give up its arms,” he added. “And second, you want to make sure that there are no weapons factories inside Gaza. There’s no smuggling of weapons into Gaza. That’s demilitarisation.”
• Trump vows to disarm Hamas as it executes enemies on Gaza streets
Netanyahu, back in court, complains he’s ill
The Israeli prime minister was back in court on Wednesday, despite an appeal by President Trump for him to be pardoned.
Binyamin Netanyahu complained of a cough and a cold during his testimony in the Tel Aviv District Court and requested that the hearing finish early, which the judges agreed to.
The prime minister, who is on trial for corruption charges, said the cold had “refused to get better”, and that his doctor had recommended he take several days’ rest, or at least reduce his working hours.
The long-running case includes claims that Netanyahu and his wife inappropriately accepted more than $260,000 in luxury goods including cigars, jewellery and champagne.
On Monday, during his speech to the Knesset, Trump called for the case to be dropped.
President Trump at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Monday, where he made a plea on behalf of Binyamin Netanyahu
JALAA MAREY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Hamas: We’re working to return hostage remains
Hazem Kassem, a spokesperson for Hamas, said on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday that the group was working to return the bodies of the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.
He accused Israel of violating the deal with shootings on Tuesday in eastern Gaza City and the territory’s southern city of Rafah.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the military was operating along the deployment lines laid out in the deal and warned that anyone approaching the deployment line would be targeted — as happened on Tuesday with several militants.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, also demanded that Hamas fulfil the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal by returning the hostages’ bodies.
“We will not compromise on this and will not stop our efforts until we return the last deceased hostage, until the last one,” he said.
Israeli ‘handcuffed to cage for a year’
The father of a released Israeli hostage has said his son was handcuffed to a cage for a year after he tried to escape while held in Gaza.
Yaron Or said his son, Avinatan Or, who earlier on Wednesday released a video from his hospital bed, had “tried to escape from captivity, and then they beat him”.
“He was handcuffed to the bars,” Or told Israeli radio. “It was a barred place 1.8 metres high, and the length of it was the length of the mattress, plus a little. You can call it a cage.”
Or said his son was in a tunnel for the entire duration of his captivity. “They didn’t starve him, but the food was scarce. He is very thin.”
He added: “Around him, there were all these guards whose relatives were killed by the IDF bombings. And I think that it’s simply a miracle that they didn’t harm him.”
Not the first time Hamas has released wrong body
It is not yet clear how or why Hamas released a body that was not that of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza, but it is not the first time it has happened.
In February the body of an anonymous Palestinian woman was returned by Hamas in the place of Shri Bibas, an Israeli mother who was captured with her two sons on October 7, 2023.
The substitution caused outrage in Israel and Hamas handed over another body the next day, which was identified as that of Bibas.
Her family were told she and her sons Ariel, four, and Kfir, at nine months the youngest of all the hostages taken to Gaza, were “murdered in captivity” by Hamas, no later than November 2023.
• Body of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas identified, says family
Listen: How Trump’s Gaza deal could still unravelIsrael ‘will not rest until all bodies returned’
The head of the Israel Defence Forces has said the military “will not rest until we return all” of the hostages, including those who died during or since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Since 20 surviving hostages were returned to Israel on Monday, eight bodies have been released by Hamas, but only seven have been formally identified as those held captive in Gaza. That leaves the remains of 21 hostages unaccounted for.
Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, described the return of all the bodies as “our moral, national and Jewish duty” in a speech to soldiers on Wednesday.
“In co-ordination with the political echelon, we will insist and stand firm on upholding all the agreements,” Zamir said.
One body was not an Israeli hostage, IDF confirms
The Israel Defence Forces has confirmed that one of the bodies returned by Hamas from Gaza last night is not an Israeli hostage.
“After completing the tests at the National Centre for Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any hostage,” the IDF said.
“Hamas is required to make all necessary efforts to return the deceased hostages.”
More than 100 Palestinian medics ‘still in Israeli custody’
Dozens of Palestinian medical staff detained during Israeli raids on Gaza’s hospitals have been freed since the ceasefire was announced.
However, Health Workers Watch says at least 115 remain in Israeli prisons.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, 52, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has been imprisoned without charge for nearly ten months.
Hussam Abu Safiya is treated by colleagues for his injuries following an Israeli strike in Gaza last November
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
During the war, he repeatedly refused Israeli demands to shut down his hospital. One of his sons was killed in a drone strike there and he was wounded in another strike, but he kept working, and his video testimonies made him a rallying figure.
When troops raided the hospital on December 27 last year, the director was arrested with dozens of patients and staff. He is being held in Ofer prison in the West Bank.
The Israeli rights group Physicians for Human Rights — Israel, which visited Abu Safiya last month, said he had not been brought before a judge. It said he had lost 25kg and had alleged mistreatment in prison.
Hamas must be ‘erased from Earth’
A Hamas gunman in Gaza on Tuesday
DAWOUD ABU ALKAS/REUTERS
Hamas must be “erased from the face of the Earth” for failing to hand over all the bodies of dead hostages from Gaza, Israel’s far-right national security minister said on Wednesday.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is sanctioned by the UK and other countries for his extreme views, opposed the US-backed ceasefire deal Israel agreed with Hamas last week.
• Who are the Israeli ministers sanctioned over Gaza comments?
Hamas had indicated to mediators that it might be difficult to find all of the remains of hostages.
But Ben-Gvir compared the terror group to the Nazis and accused it of reneging on the agreement.
“Enough with the disgrace,” he said. “Moments after opening the crossings to hundreds of trucks, Hamas very quickly returned to its known methods — to lie, to cheat, and to abuse families and the bodies.
“This Nazi terror understands only force, and the only way to deal with it is to erase it from the face of the Earth.”
Hostages reveal the horror of Gaza’s tunnels
After the joy of their return, released hostages are describing to their families how they were hidden in tunnels and tents, tortured and starved.
Angrest, a 22-year-old soldier, has no recollection of the moment of his abduction. “He remembers being beaten so badly that he lost consciousness,” his mother, Anat, told Channel 12 News. “They covered him with black sacks and dragged him away.”
He had been held in a small, dark tunnel for the last four months of his captivity, she said, and spent his first night of freedom sleeping beside his parents, relearning how to just be — including how to sit and eat with a knife and fork.
• After reunion joy, hostages reveal the horror of Gaza’s tunnels
Israel cuts number of aid deliveries to Gaza
Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing
STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Israel has notified the UN it will allow only 300 lorries of aid into Gaza, far below the minimum of 600 that had been agreed as part of the ceasefire deal, after delays by Hamas in handing over the remains of hostages.
Hamas had said it would need more time to find the bodies of hostages who died or were killed in captivity, after passing a 72-hour deadline this week.
The UN said a minimum of 600 lorries of aid was needed to address a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza after the two-year war led to famine and destroyed much of the territory.
Hamas accuses Israel of violating deal
A Hamas spokesman said the group was making “great effort to resolve the matter” in an apparent acknowledgment of Israeli accusations that it had returned a body to Israel that did not belong to a hostage.
“Israel violated the agreement by attacking civilians,” Hazem Qassem told the Saudi Al-Hadath channel.
“We have updated the mediators about the difficulty in handing over the bodies of the captives, we are making a great effort to resolve the matter.”
Qassem also said that Israel had “committed a serious violation of the agreement when it killed civilians in Shejaiya and Rafah, and we call on the mediators to compel Israel to abide by its commitments”.
Bodies of four hostages from Gaza City arrive in Tel Aviv
Comment: For peace to last, Hamas must admit defeat
Enough, now, of dying. Enough of rape, and murder, and kidnap, and bombs. Enough of fathers mourning the deaths of their daughters, enough of mothers waiting at home for their missing sons. Enough of homes reduced to rubble and hopes turned to ashes. Enough of hearses and hostages. Enough (Daniel Finkelstein writes).
Among his collection of Nazi artefacts, my grandfather, the archivist of the anti-Nazi movement, possessed a child’s board game. It was called Juden Raus! The players each had a white piece and had to collect as many hook-nosed pieces as they could. The winner was the child who gathered up all the Jews and took them to the “collection point”.
By this finishing line, there was a picture of a family of stereotypical Jews and the words “Off to Palestine”. The Germans hadn’t thought up the gas chambers yet, and even when they did they didn’t talk about them. So off to Palestine it was.
• Read in full: For peace to last, Hamas must admit defeat
Freed Israeli hostage jokes after being released
A released Israeli hostage held by Hamas for two years has posted a video from the hospital bed where he is recovering.
Speaking into a smartphone camera, Avinatan Or jokes: “Is it recording? I don’t know what this technology is … I was offline for two years.”
After being abducted at the Nova music festival, Or, 32, was held alone in Gaza, only meeting the other remaining hostages on Monday as they were released. He was reunited with his girlfriend, Noa Argamani, who was also taken hostage and rescued in 2024.
In his video from the hospital, Or says he hopes to meet all his family members who campaigned for his release. “I heard you did a lot for me,” he adds.
Released prisoner ‘caught scabies in Israeli jail’
Mohammed al-Asaliya, 22, a student, who was released on Monday alongside 1,700 other Palestinian detainees, said he contracted scabies while in prison.
Released Palestinians arrive in Khan Yunis in Gaza this week
ABDALHKEM ABU RIASH/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
“There was no medical care. We tried to treat ourselves by using floor disinfectant on our wounds, but it only made them worse. The mattresses were filthy, the environment unhealthy, our immunity weak, and the food contaminated,” Asaliya said.
The Israeli prison service and military did not comment on the claims but have previously insisted that their prison conditions comply with international law.
Palestinians ‘tortured in Israeli prisons’
Palestinians returning to Gaza from Israeli prisons have alleged that they were tortured, medically neglected and starved in jail.
Naseem al-Radee, 33, was arrested in Gaza in December 2023 and spent 22 months in an Israeli detention centre. He was never charged with a crime, and has claimed he was regularly beaten.
“The conditions in the prison were extremely harsh, from having our hands and feet bound to being subjected to the cruellest forms of torture,” Radee told The Guardian.
“They used tear gas and rubber bullets to intimidate us, in addition to constant verbal abuse and insults.”
IDF hostage killed by Israeli bombing, family says
Tamir Nimrodi
BRING THEM HOME NOW/HANDOUT/REUTERS
Tamir Nimrodi, a hostage soldier whose body was returned on Monday from Gaza, was killed by Israeli air strikes during the war, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
“Tamir was kidnapped alive from his base and killed by IDF bombings in captivity,” the campaign group said.
Earlier, his family said in a statement that he had been “murdered” in Hamas captivity after being kidnapped during the attacks of October 7, 2023.
Hamas ‘carries out public executions’ of rivals
At the height of his military campaign in Gaza, Binyamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel was sending weapons to rival clans in the territory in the hope they would take up the fight against Hamas.
The man suspected of being Israel’s main beneficiary is an alleged drug trafficker, Yasser Abu Shabab, whose militia, the Popular Forces, controls territory around Gaza’s strategic southeast corner, which is crucial for the flow of aid.
However, even as negotiators seek to restore some semblance of order before they can implement the difficult next stages of President Trump’s peace plan, Hamas has stated it is seeking to “cleanse” the strip of “collaborators”.
• Read in full: Hamas ‘carries out public executions’ of rivals
Fourth body ‘may not be remains of a hostage’
A body returned by Hamas on Monday may not belong to any of the hostages held in Gaza, Israeli media have reported.
Security officials told Hebrew-language media that they suspected that one of the four bodies returned via the Red Cross was a Palestinian from Gaza.
The three other bodies returned were identified as Tamir Nimrodi, Eitan Levy, and Uriel Baruch, who died in captivity after the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Efforts to identify the fourth body are said to be continuing.
Three of four bodies returned have been identified
Three of the four bodies of Israeli hostages in Gaza returned by Hamas overnight have been identified, their families said after forensic confirmation.
Ouriel Baruch
BRING THEM HOME NOW/HANDOUT/REUTERS
“It is with immense sadness and pain that we announce the return of the body of our beloved Ouriel Baruch from the Gaza Strip, after two long years of prayer, hope, and faith,” said the family of the Jerusalem resident who was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, at the Nova festival at the age of 35.
The relatives of Tamir Nimrodi, 18, and Eitan Levy, 53, also announced their return to Israel. Nimrodi, a soldier, was captured at a military base on the Gaza border. Levy was killed after dropping off a friend at Kibbutz Beeri on the morning of the Hamas attack.
Bodies of four more hostages returned
The remains of four more hostages handed over by Hamas were brought into Israel from Gaza, as the identities of those transferred a day earlier were confirmed.
The remains were handed over to the Red Cross, then transferred to Israel, the latest step in implementing a ceasefire after two years of war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said.
“Four coffins of deceased hostages … crossed the border into the state of Israel a short while ago,” the military said in a statement. It added that remains were being taken for forensic testing.
On Monday Hamas transferred the remains of four people hours after the release of the last 20 living hostages.
Separately, a Gaza hospital said it had received the bodies of 45 Palestinians handed back by Israel.
Eitan Levy identified as one of bodies returned
BRING THEM HOME NOW/REUTERS
The family of the Israeli hostage Eitan Levy has announced the return of his remains.
Levy’s body was returned by Hamas last night, the Hostages and Missing Families forum said.
“Alongside the sorrow and the understanding that the heart will never be whole again, Eitan’s return brings some measure of solace to a family that has lived with painful uncertainty for more than two years,” it added.
A taxi driver from Bat Yam, Levy, 53, ran into a Hamas ambush on October 7, 2023, after dropping off a friend at Kibbutz Beeri.
After 62 days, the Israel Defence Forces informed his family that he was presumed killed while in captivity in Gaza.
Israel is set to reopen Gaza’s key Rafah crossing on Wednesday for humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian territory.
“Six hundred trucks of humanitarian aid will be dispatched [Wednesday] to the Gaza Strip by the UN, approved international organisations, the private sector and donor countries,” the Israeli public broadcaster KAN said.
It said the reopening of the southern Rafah crossing, decided by the “political echelon”, followed Hamas handing over the remains of four more hostages late on Tuesday.
Trump: Hamas must disarm — or we’ll disarm them
President Trump vowed to disarm Hamas after the militant group was seen executing suspected collaborators in Gaza as it attempted to regain control after the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Only hours after Trump proclaimed “the end of the era of terror and death” in the Middle East, a video emerged showing a firing squad of masked gunmen shooting dead at least seven captives who were bound and kneeling. Spectators could be heard cheering “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) and referring to those killed as collaborators.
Trump said last night: “They [Hamas] did take out a couple of gangs that were very, very bad … and that didn’t bother me much. To be honest with you that’s OK.”
But he added: “If they don’t disarm we will disarm them … and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently … they know I’m not playing games.”
Under Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas will disarm and an international stabilisation force (ISF) will be drafted to provide security in the territory, until a reformed Palestinian Authority can take over.