Israel hands over the bodies of 45 Palestinians after Hamas returned the remains of three soldiers
Deir al-Balah (Gaza Strip) – Israel handed over the bodies of 45 Palestinians on Monday, the Red Cross said, a day after gunmen returned the remains of three hostages. Israeli officials identified the three as soldiers killed in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza.
The exchange marked another step forward toward a fragile US-brokered ceasefire aimed at ending the bloodiest and most destructive war ever between Israel and Hamas.
Since the truce came into effect on October 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 20 hostages, with eight of them remaining in Gaza.
For every Israeli hostage returned, Israel releases the remains of 15 Palestinians. By Monday’s return, the bodies of 270 Palestinians had been returned since the start of the ceasefire.
Slow identification process in Gaza
The Red Cross said it facilitated the transfer of 45 Palestinian bodies to Gaza on Monday morning. Zaher Al-Wahidi, spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, told The Associated Press that Nasser Hospital received the bodies around noon.
The ministry said that only 78 bodies have been identified among the bodies returned so far. She added that forensic work is complicated by the lack of DNA testing tools in Gaza. The ministry publishes photos of the remains on the Internet, hoping that families will identify them.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office identified the three hostages, whose bodies were returned to Israel on Sunday evening, as Captain Omar Neutra, an American-Israeli, and Staff Sgt. Oz Daniel and Colonel Assaf Hamami. A Hamas statement earlier said that their remains were found on Sunday in a tunnel in southern Gaza.
Neutra was 21 years old when Hamas militants kidnapped his tank crew during a 2023 attack. In December 2024, the military announced Neutra had been killed in the attack.
Daniel, 19, was a member of the tank crew and was transferred to Gaza. Nimrod Cohen, who was also in the tank, had been released alive earlier, as was the body of another crew member.
“Our hearts are broken, but finally we can begin the process of bringing Omar to his final resting place in the land he loved and defended,” Orna, Neutra’s mother, told reporters Monday in Tel Aviv.
She and her husband, Ronen, thanked Israeli forces, US President Donald Trump, and US negotiators, who played a leadership role in brokering the ceasefire. But they did not thank Netanyahu, whom many hostage families accuse of prolonging the conflict and endangering prisoners.
“The soldiers of the Israeli army and the American administration fought for his life,” Ronen Neutra said.
Hamami, commander of the Israeli Southern Brigade in the Gaza Strip, was killed during a 2023 offensive while fighting to defend Kibbutz Nirim and his body was transferred to the Palestinian Territories.
The militants release one or three bodies every few days. Israel sought to speed up the process of returning the remains and in some cases said that the remains were not those of hostages. Hamas said the work was complicated by the widespread destruction.
The arrest of former soldiers shakes Israel
Israel continues to be rocked by a political scandal involving the army’s former legal chief, Major General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, who admitted to leaking a video of Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee and resigned from his position.
Far-right politician Itamar Ben Gvir, the Israeli Minister of National Security, said that Tomer Yerushalmi was arrested on Sunday evening. At the court session on Monday, the judge extended her detention until Wednesday, according to a copy of the decision. She said she was being held on suspicion of crimes including fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice. The investigation continues while she is detained in a women’s prison in central Israel.
Israeli Channel 12 reported that police conducted a frantic search for Tomer Yerushalmi on Sunday after her family raised concerns about her safety and police found her abandoned car near the beach in Tel Aviv. She was found shortly after the search began, police said.
Israeli media reported that former military prosecutor Colonel Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight and his detention was also extended.
The Palestinian detainee who was sexually assaulted in the video leaked by Tomer Yerushalmi was released last year and returned to Gaza on October 13, according to documents from the military prosecutor’s office obtained by the AP.
Martyrdom of Palestinians in the West Bank
Two Palestinians, including a boy, were killed by Israeli gunfire on Sunday evening in two separate incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah.
The ministry said on Monday that Jamil Hanani (17 years old) was martyred in the town of Beit Furik. The Israeli army said that soldiers opened fire on Palestinians who were throwing stones, wounding one person. Hanani’s death represents a wave of military killings of Palestinian youth in the West Bank during an escalation in violence since the beginning of the war.
The ministry said that the young man, Ahmed Al-Atrash (32 years old), was killed on Sunday by Israeli settler bullets at the entrance to the city of Hebron. The Israeli army referred the AP to the police, which did not immediately comment. Hundreds of extremist settlers live in fortified enclaves under military protection in the city, which is inhabited by more than 200,000 Palestinians.
Efforts to increase aid to Gaza and the vaccination campaign
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will visit Jordan on Monday, with plans to visit a warehouse where British aid remains stuck waiting to enter Gaza.
Prior to the visit, Cooper said, “There is an urgent need for humanitarian support and the people of Gaza cannot wait.”
“Following the US-led peace process and plans to significantly increase aid to Gaza, we need increased crossings, accelerated lifting of restrictions, and more agencies capable of providing aid,” Cooper said.
Cooper also announced that Britain would provide an additional £6 million ($7.9 million) in humanitarian support for Gaza, provided by the United Nations Population Fund.
The Gaza Ministry of Health also announced on Monday that a campaign to vaccinate about 40,000 Palestinian children under the age of 3 against preventable diseases such as measles, polio and meningitis will begin next week. Dr. Nidal Ghoneim, director of public health at the Ministry of Health, told the Associated Press that the program will focus on children who missed routine vaccinations or received only partial doses due to the war.
The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel two years ago led to the killing of about 1,200 people and the taking of 251 hostages. The Israeli military offensive led to the deaths of more than 68,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records that independent experts generally consider reliable.
Israel, which has denied accusations of genocide in Gaza by a UN commission of inquiry and others, disputed the ministry’s figures without providing a contradictory tally.
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Frankl reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Renata Brito in Jerusalem; Melanie Liedman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel; Jill Lawless in London and Aamer Madani in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
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Find more AP coverage of Israel and Hamas at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
