Israel received the remains of two more hostages Wednesday, hours after the Israeli military said that one of the bodies previously turned over was not that of a hostage.
The remains were transferred by the Red Cross from Hamas. After the two coffins arrived in Israel, the military in a statement cautioned that the hostages’ identities had yet to be verified.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry said it received 45 more bodies of Palestinians from Israel,
another step in implementation of the ceasefire agreement. That brought to 90 the total number of bodies returned to Gaza for burial. The forensics team examining the remains said they showed signs of mistreatment.
Here's the latest:
Israel received the remains of two more hostages Wednesday, the Red Cross said.
The remains were transferred by the Red Cross from Hamas. After the two coffins arrived in Israel, the military in a statement cautioned that the hostages’ identities had yet to be verified.
“Israeli health and forensic authorities are responsible for identifying the remains of the deceased," the ICRC said in a statement verifying it facilitated the transfer.
“The parties must endeavor to facilitate the return of the remains of the deceased to their families. The ICRC can fulfil its functions as a neutral intermediary only through the cooperation of all actors, and within the framework of the current agreement," it said.
The Israeli military says the International Committee of the Red Cross has received the remains of two more hostages to be transferred from the Gaza Strip to Israeli custody.
The transfers on Wednesday came hours after Israel said one of the bodies previously turned over was not that of a hostage, testing the fragile truce that paused the two-year war last week.
Israel’s military said the coffins would be transferred to its forces in Gaza.
The ceasefire called for all hostages living and dead to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.
Trump, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, said that Israeli forces could resume fighting if Hamas refuses to disarm.
“Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word. If Israel could go in and knock the crap of them, they’d do that,” he said.
Speaking about the Israel Defense Forces and Netanyahu’s administration, he said: “I had to hold them back” and “I had it out with Bibi.”
He said Hams right now is “going in and clearing out the gangs, violent gangs.” But when asked if Hamas was executing innocent Palestinians, he said “I’m doing research on it” and “We’ll find out about it. It could be gangs plus.”
The president of Cyprus says his government is ready to help with security and the provision of humanitarian aid and construction material to Gaza as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for the Palestinian territory.
President Nikos Christodoulides told the Associated Press Wednesday that the detailed proposal was presented at this week’s Gaza peace summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. It was compiled in consultation with the prime minister of Israel, the presidents of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council.
Christodoulides didn’t provide specific details about the proposal, but said that it would be discussed and refined further during next week’s EU-Egypt summit that will precede a European Council meeting.
He said the proposal builds on Cyprus’ initiative to establish a maritime corridor that in the last 18 months shipped 25,000 tons of donated humanitarian aid from the island’s ports to Gaza, primarily through the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Christodoulides said Egypt commended the proposal.
Aid organizations are prioritizing moving aid trucks that have been sitting long at the borders into the Gaza Strip as the ceasefire holds and bringing in heavy machinery to rebuild destroyed hospitals, said the World Health Organization on Wednesday.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, head of WHO’s eastern Mediterranean office, told the Associated Press in Cairo that it’s necessary now to bring in urgent medical supplies, medications and equipment and fuel to provide instant relief to people in Gaza. Reinstalling warehouses is also a priority, said Balkhy.
Since the ceasefire agreement was signed and came into effect, WHO sent eight trucks carrying health supplies, including insulin and cold chain lab kits, to its warehouse in Deir al Balah.
“We’re having a whole lot of hope that the ceasefire … will be long lasting and that we can open up and do the work that we need to do with our other U.N. agencies and with our partners on the ground,” she added.
Ongoing WHO missions now are focused on picking up more trucks from Kerem Shalom crossing and resupplying hospitals.
The World Food Program said its trucks began arriving inside the Gaza Strip Wednesday for the first time in two days after crossings were closed due to the release of hostages and prisoners’ exchange between Israel and Hamas.
Scaling up humanitarian aid into Gaza to hundreds of trucks going in daily is also part of the ceasefire deal. However, Israel said Tuesday it would cut the number of trucks, saying Hamas was too slow to return the bodies of hostages, according to
“Our trucks crossed into Gaza, but it’s still early days in the ceasefire, and the situation remains unpredictable,” said Abeer Etefa, WFP spokesperson. “We’re hopeful that access will improve in the coming days.”
Etefa said fewer than 200 WFP trucks made it through on Sunday.
“We are scaling up our bakery and nutrition programs and have successfully begun organizing food distributions in several areas of Gaza.”
Food distribution programs in Gaza have been hampered by widespread military operations, Israeli restrictions, chaos and insecurity.
Palestinians awaited information about the 90 bodies that arrived at Nasser Hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of the ceasefire deal. The forensics team described disturbing conditions, with the bodies bearing signs of physical abuse.
Sameh Hamad, a member of a commission tasked with receiving the bodies at Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital, said some arrived with their hands and legs cuffed.
“There are signs of torture and executions,” he told The Associated Press.
The bodies, he said, belonged to men ages 25 to 70, and most of them still had straps around their necks, while one had a rope, he said. Though most were brought in civilian clothing, some were in camouflage uniforms.
Hamad said the Red Cross had provided names for only three of the dead, leaving many families in limbo.
Rasmiya Qudeih, 52, waited outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, hoping her son was among the 45 bodies transferred on Wednesday.
“God willing, he will be,” she said.
Israel is expected to hand over more bodies in the coming days, though officials have not said how many are in its custody or how many will be returned.
This came after reports that the group's fighters clashed with armed parties and killed alleged gangsters in what it described as an effort to restore law and order.
“We strongly urge Hamas to immediately suspend violence and shooting innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza — in both Hamas-held parts of Gaza and those secured by the IDF behind the Yellow Line,” said Admiral Brad Cooper of the United States Central Command, referring to the initial ceasefire line dividing zones of control in Gaza. He used an acronym of the Israeli military.
The call came a day after President Donald Trump said the clashes left him unbothered and did not affect the agreement that could pave the way for Hamas' disarmament.
Illouz was a hostage whose body was released from captivity on Monday. Dozens gathered Wednesday on bridges in Tel Aviv overlooking the highway to pay their last respects as a convoy drove his body to the cemetery.
“I came because I fought for them to come home, and as I was happy for the ones who came back alive, it’s now time to bow our heads for those who didn’t,” said Shlomit Grouda, a Tel Aviv resident, as she stood on a pedestrian overpass with an Israeli flag.
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief warned Wednesday that hopes pinned on last week’s ceasefire deal are slipping, as aid groups again struggle to deliver needed supplies into Gaza to ease hunger, disease and collapsing sanitation.
Tom Fletcher called on Hamas to make efforts to return the bodies of deceased hostages and Israel to allow for the surge in aid as stipulated in the agreement.
“We made progress clearing roads and reopening bakeries. We shared in the joy and relief of families reunited. But yesterday we faced further setbacks to that implementation,” Fletcher, the U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, said.
“As Israel has agreed, they must allow the massive surge of humanitarian aid — thousands of trucks a week — on which so many lives depend, and on which the world has insisted,” he added, pushing Israel to open more border crossings to deliver aid into Gaza.
His remarks followed an announcement by COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing aid, that only half the expected 600 trucks would enter Gaza on Wednesday, after two days of closure for hostage exchanges and Tuesday’s Jewish holiday.
It was not immediately clear whether Israel would withhold deliveries amid questions about the return of deceased hostages. COGAT declined to comment on the number of trucks expected to enter Gaza on Wednesday.
Israel has transferred the bodies of more Palestinians to Gaza as part of the ceasefire deal, according to officials at Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
An Associated Press journalist at the facility saw three trucks carrying the bodies arriving at the hospital.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday the bodies of 19 people have been brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours.
They include 16 bodies that were recovered from under the rubble, the ministry said in its daily report. Hospitals also received 35 wounded.
That has brought the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war to 67,938 since Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry said. Another 169,638 have been wounded, it said.
The ministry said it didn’t add the 45 bodies that Israel transferred to Gaza on Tuesday to its tally.
The European Union said on Wednesday it is on standby to deploy a long-standing humanitarian mission, known as EUBAM, at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza if conditions on the ground improve.
“EUBAM remains on standby to deploy to the Rafah crossing point in support of the Gaza peace plan as soon as conditions allow,” said Anouar El Anouni, a spokesperson for the European Commission. He did not elaborate on those conditions. “We remain on standby and we stand ready to deploy at short notice.”
The European Border Assistance Mission in Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border began in 2005.
The EU, which has provided key support for the Palestinian Authority, pledged to help flood Gaza with humanitarian aid. It said it could extend a police support program already operating in the West Bank to Gaza to buttress a stabilization force called for in the current peace plan from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Outrage over the war has riven the 27-nation bloc and pushed relations between Israel and the EU to a historic low.
The Egyptian Red Crescent said at least 400 trucks carrying food, fuel, and medical supplies were bound for the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The announcement comes as Israel and Hamas fight over the slow return of the bodies of deceased hostages.
On Tuesday, the Israeli defense body overseeing humanitarian aid in Gaza, COGAT, notified humanitarian organizations Tuesday that it would allow into Gaza only half the 600 daily aid trucks called for under the deal.
It was not immediately clear whether it was following through on the threat. COGAT declined to comment on the number of trucks expected to enter Gaza on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons urged Israel to provide all available information on bodies returned to Gaza, including “names of the victims and details about the circumstances of their deaths.”
The center said it received information that some of the bodies that were transferred Tuesday were only partial remains, raising concerns about the circumstances of their death and detention.
It called on Israel to immediately release all bodies in its custody, as well as provide information about the fate of forcibly disappeared Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza two years ago.
The center said between 8,000 and 9,000 Palestinians have been missing or forcibly disappeared since the start of the war.
