JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas said it would hand over the remains of a hostage as Israel said it would begin allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, signs the US-backed ceasefire was holding despite an earlier glitch over returned remains.
Hamas said it would return the remains that were just discovered on Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear who they belonged to. It is believed that there are still only two hostages in Gaza and the first phase of the agreement is supposed to end when both are returned.
The agreement calls for the long-closed Rafah crossing to be opened for medical evacuations and travel to and from the strip. The World Health Organization says that there are more than 16,500 sick and injured people who need to leave Gaza for medical treatment.
An Israeli official told The Associated Press that Rafah will only be open to Palestinians leaving Gaza, not entering. Egypt, which controls the other side, said that the crossing will only be opened if the movement goes both ways.
After the exchanges, the 20-point plan calls for the creation of an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and arming Hamas.
A planned transfer comes after a snag
Hamas said it will return another hostage at 5 pm Once received by Israel, the remains will likely undergo tests to determine if they belong to any hostages still in Gaza.
In the earlier crash, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that forensic tests on Wednesday revealed that the partial remains returned by the militants on Tuesday did not match any of the hostages still in Gaza.
Palestinian militants resumed searching and said later on Wednesday that they found the body of a hostage in northern Gaza.
Two hostages are still in Gaza: the Israeli Ran Gvili and the Thai citizen Sudthisak Rinthalak. Gvili was an Israeli police officer who helped people escape from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, and was killed fighting elsewhere. Sudthisak Rinthalak was an agricultural worker from Thailand who was employed at Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hardest hit in the attack.
A total of 31 workers were kidnapped from Thailand, the largest group of foreigners to be held captive. Most of them were released in the first and second cease-fires. The Thai Foreign Ministry said that in addition to the hostages, 46 Thais were killed during the war.
Rafah to open in the ‘coming days’
The statement about allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza through Rafah came from COGAT, the Israeli military body tasked with facilitating aid to Gaza. He said that Israel will coordinate with Egypt regarding the exit of the Palestinians, under the supervision of a mission from the European Union.
Those wishing to leave Gaza will need “Israeli security clearance,” COGAT said.
The US State Department’s Office of Near Eastern Affairs, writing on X, cast the opening of the crossing as a measure to give “the most vulnerable Gazans” access to medical care outside Gaza.
But an Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational plans, said that all Palestinians who want to leave Gaza will be able to pass through Rafah if Egypt agrees to receive them.
The official said that the crossing will not open for returns to Gaza.
Egypt’s State Information Service has denied that the Rafah crossing will be “only for the exit” of Palestinians in Gaza. Citing an unnamed Egyptian official, the service said that the crossing, if an agreement is reached, will be for travel in both directions according to the plan put forward by US President Donald Trump.
The crossing was sealed in May 2024 when Israel’s military invaded the area. It was briefly opened in February this year for the evacuation of sick and wounded Palestinians for treatment, as part of the previous ceasefire agreement.
Israel nominates a Lebanese envoy
Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel will send an envoy for talks with Lebanese diplomatic and economic officials, marking an “initial attempt to create a basis for relations and economic cooperation” between the two countries.
Israeli media identified the envoy as Uri Resnick, a former diplomat and deputy director for foreign policy of the national security council.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has said he will appoint civilians to the previously all-military committee to monitor enforcement of the US-brokered ceasefire that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. The move was to defend Lebanese sovereignty and interests, he said.
Israel and Lebanon have been in a state of war since 1948. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fought a months-long war that ended in a tense ceasefire a year ago.
The Lebanese appointee, Simon Karam, a lawyer and former ambassador to the United States, will take part in the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, Aoun said. The committee includes representatives of Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France and the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.
The Palestinian hospital says that Israel killed a man in Gaza
A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, a hospital said, marking the latest Palestinian fatality reported in Gaza.
Israeli forces shot the 46-year-old man in the Zeitoun neighborhood in the East of Gaza City, according to Al-Ahli hospital, which received the body. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The hospital said the man was shot while in the “safe zone,” which, according to the terms of the ceasefire, is not controlled by the Israeli military.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says more than 360 Palestinians have been killed across Gaza since the ceasefire came into force on 11 October. The ministry does not distinguish between militants and civilians, although it says that approximately half of those killed were women and children. The ministry operates under the Hamas-led government. It is staffed by medical professionals and keeps detailed records considered generally reliable by the international community.
Return of scattered Palestinian bodies
Twenty live hostages and the remains of 26 others have been returned to Israel since the ceasefire began in early October. Both Hamas and Israel have accused the other of violating the ceasefire several times.
The exchanges of the dead were the central component of the initial phase of the agreement reached by the United States, which requires Hamas to return the remains of all hostages as soon as possible.
Israel has been freeing 15 Palestinian bodies for the remains of each hostage as part of the ceasefire agreement. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the total number of remains received so far is 330. Health officials in Gaza say they have only been able to identify a fraction of the bodies handed over from Israel, and the process is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits.
The exchanges went ahead even as Israel and Hamas accused each other of violating other terms of the agreement. The Israeli officials accused Hamas of having in some cases entrusted partial remains and in others of delaying the discovery of corpses.
Hamas has accused Israel of opening fire on civilians and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory. The number of casualties has decreased since the ceasefire took effect, but officials in Gaza continued to report deaths from strikes, while Israel said soldiers were also killed in militant attacks.
The cease-fire aims to end the war sparked by the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, which has killed around 1,200 people and seen 251 taken hostage.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Abby Sewell contributed from Beirut.