Hospital officials in Gaza said on Saturday they have received the bodies of 15 Palestinians returned from Israel under the terms of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement.
The bodies arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the officials said, a day after Palestinian militants returned the body of an Israeli hostage. Under the terms of the deal, Israel is to return the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli hostage handed over.
Israel confirmed on Saturday that the remains returned the previous night were those of Lior Rudaeff, an Israeli man who died fighting Hamas during the militants’ October 7, 2023 assault that ignited the war.
According to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the identification marked another step in the fragile truce.
Rudaeff, born in Argentina, moved to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in southern Israel as a child. He served as an ambulance driver for more than four decades and was a member of his community’s emergency response team. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said he was killed in the Hamas-led attack and his body was taken to Gaza.
Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 23 hostages, including Rudaeff’s body, with five still held in Gaza.
In exchange, Israel has so far returned the bodies of 285 Palestinians, according to the Red Cross and Gaza’s Health Ministry. Health officials in Gaza, lacking DNA testing kits, have identified 84 of the bodies.
The ceasefire deal also requires Israel to allow significantly more humanitarian aid into Gaza. But the United Nations says current relief efforts remain far below the population’s needs.
UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haqq said more than 200,000 metric tons of aid are ready for delivery to Gaza, but only 37,000 tons—mostly food—have entered so far.
The Hamas-led assault on southern Israel in October 2023 killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s ongoing military offensive has since killed more than 68,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas but staffed by medical professionals whose figures are widely considered credible by independent experts.
Source: AP