Israel has received the body of another hostage held in Gaza, leaving two unaccounted for – an Israeli police officer and a Thai resident who was working in a kibbutz on the Gaza border when Palestinian militants invaded southern Israel on October 7th, 2023.
The remains released on Tuesday by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were identified on Wednesday as Dror Or (48), who was kidnapped from his home on Kibbutz Be’eri and killed on October 7th 2023, together with his wife, Yonat. Two of his three children were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza until November 2023, when they were released as part of a weeklong ceasefire deal.
Following the latest release, the Gaza health ministry announced on Wednesday that it had received 15 bodies of Palestinians from Israel as part of the prisoner-hostage swap deal.
Under the terms of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, all 20 living hostages were released on October 13th in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.
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So far, the remains of 23 dead Israeli hostages have been handed over, along with those of three foreign hostages from Thailand, Nepal and Tanzania.
Israel has accused the militant groups in Gaza of deliberately delaying the return of the hostages’ bodies, while Hamas has insisted it is doing its best to find them under rubble.
The slow pace of the hostage release is one of the main factors holding up the second phase of US president Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, which will involve a further withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the arrival of international peacekeepers as part of an International Stabilisation Force.
The IDF said on Wednesday that six militants who “most likely emerged from the underground terror infrastructure” in eastern Rafah were identified by spotters and subsequently shot at, “while they attempted to flee.” The IDF statement said “a hit was identified”.
Dozens of Hamas fighters remain underground in Israeli-controlled Rafah, after Israel refused requests from the US to grant them safe passage to the Hamas-held area of Gaza, insisting instead on their surrender.
Delegations from mediating states Egypt, Qatar and Turkey met on Tuesday in Cairo to discuss advancing to the second phase of the ceasefire deal.
The Saudi Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that Hamas leaders inside and outside Gaza are considering dissolving the group’s armed wing and reinventing itself as solely a political organisation “capable of taking part in political, economic, social and general public life.”
The proposal also calls for Hamas to become a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, chaired by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
Becoming a legitimate political party would also ensure Hamas’s “survival away from its weapons,” a source told Asharq Al-Awsat.
[ Palestinian economy suffers collapse after Israel-Hamas conflict, UN saysOpens in new window ]
