Hospital officials in Gaza say that Israel has handed over the bodies of 30 Palestinians. Friday’s handover comes a day after Palestinian militants in Gaza turned over the remains of two hostages to Israel. Israel’s military said Thursday that Palestinian militants handed over the remains of two more hostages, in the latest indication that the fragile ceasefire agreement is moving forward despite Israeli strikes on Gaza this week.
The two sets of remains were given to the Red Cross in Gaza, then transported into Israel by troops and taken to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine for identification, the Israeli military said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Thursday that the remains had been confirmed as those of Sahar Baruch and Amiram Cooper, both taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that set off the war.
Hamas has now returned the remains of 17 hostages since the start of the ceasefire, with 11 others still in Gaza and set to be turned over under the terms of the agreement. In return, Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians to authorities in Gaza without providing details on their identities. It is unclear if they were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack, died in Israeli custody as detainees or were recovered from Gaza by troops during the war. Health officials in Gaza have struggled to identify the bodies without access to DNA kits.
Baruch was readying to pursue an electrical engineering degree when he was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri. His brother, Idan, was killed in the attack. Three months into Sahar’s captivity, the Israeli military said he was killed during an attempted rescue mission. He was 25. Cooper was an economist and one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz. He was captured along with his wife, Nurit, who was released after 17 days. In June 2024, Israeli officials confirmed that he had been killed in Gaza.
Israel Postpones Rs 35B Egypt Gas Deal
Jerusalem: Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen has said that his refusal to sign a Rs 35 billion gas agreement with Egypt has prompted his US counterpart to cancel a planned trip to Israel. A statement from Cohen’s office on Thursday night said that US officials had been “exerting a great deal of pressure on Israeli officials” to approve the deal, but it said that the minister would refuse to do so “until Israeli interests are secured and a fair price for the Israeli market is agreed upon.”
The move, the statement said, prompted US Energy Secretary Chris Wright to cancel his trip to Israel. Wright’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. US officials in Israel declined to comment. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Cohen’s refusal to sign the deal appears to freeze progress on what his office says would be the largest gas export agreement in Israel’s history, exporting natural gas from the Leviathan gas field to Egypt.
The gas field is located in the Mediterranean Sea, 130 kilometres (80 miles) off the coast of northern Israel, according to Chevron, a US gas corporation that operates the plant. Cohen’s move appears to risk inflaming Israel’s relations with the United States and Egypt, both key brokers of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which has paused more than two years of war. The statement from Cohen’s office said that efforts have been made to settle “the political issues between Israel and Egypt,” but didn’t specify further.