Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas militants hold signs and wave Israeli flags during a demonstration in Tel Aviv, on April 6, 2024.
Jacques Guise | AFP | Getty Images
Israel said on Saturday that its special forces had recovered the body of a hostage who was killed while being held in Gaza, while the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) that dominates the Palestinian enclave said it would participate in a new round of ceasefire talks in Cairo.
After nearly six months of war, Israel has faced protests at home demanding an agreement to release the dwindling number of living hostages taken by Hamas across the border on October 7. At the same time, Western countries have expressed outrage at what they consider to be an unacceptable high number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the accompanying humanitarian crisis.
The army said that the body of Elad Katzir, a 47-year-old Israeli farmer, was found by commandos in southern Khan Yunis overnight. She added that his kidnappers from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement were killed and buried there in mid-January, citing intelligence information that she refused to go into details about.
Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, had no immediate comment.
Katsir was among 253 people dragged into Gaza by Hamas-led militants who killed about 1,200 others in southern Israel, according to official statistics, leading to an attack that medics in the Strip say killed more than 33,000 Palestinians.
His father, Abraham, was killed on Kibbutz Nir Oz, and his mother, Hanna, was held hostage but was released in November under a truce.
Qatari and Egyptian mediators are trying to reach another agreement that might return some of the remaining 129 hostages in a longer-term ceasefire in Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday announced one of the lowest daily death tolls in six months, saying 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids in the past 24 hours.
The Gaza-based ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in its reports, but local health officials say most of the dead were civilians. Israel says at least a third of them are fighters.
Hamas said on Saturday that its fighters targeted three Israeli tanks in Khan Yunis with missiles, resulting in casualties. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army, although it said earlier that forces clashed with militants in the area.
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The World Health Organization said its team was able to reach Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where Israeli special forces launched a two-week raid against suspected militants, leaving a wasteland of destroyed buildings.
The team saw at least five bodies in the compound, most of which had been extensively damaged. A statement issued by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “Even the restoration of minimal jobs in the short term seems implausible.”
Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip before the war, was one of the few partially functioning healthcare facilities in the northern Strip before the raid.
US President Joe Biden, on Thursday, called for an “immediate ceasefire” and called on Israel to strengthen humanitarian relief measures, angry at an Israeli air strike that killed aid workers in Gaza.
Israel agreed to reopen the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and temporarily use the port of Ashdod after US criticism, measures welcomed by UN humanitarian aid chief Jamie McGoldrick on Saturday.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid told N12's Meet the Press program on Saturday that he was traveling to Washington where he will meet with US officials next week. The Biden administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether senior officials would meet with Lapid.
Hamas said it would send a delegation to Cairo on Sunday to hold a new round of mediated talks. An Israeli official said that Israel had not yet decided whether it would attend the conference, citing concern that the event would be “more political theater than actual progress.”
Hamas wants any agreement to lead to an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel said that, after any truce, it would oust Hamas, which it had sworn to destroy.
A rally in Jerusalem calling on leaders to secure the hostages' release is scheduled for Sunday, the six-month anniversary of the October 7 attack, and anti-government demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday called for elections.
In a video posted online by Islamic Jihad on January 8, Katsir said: “I was on the verge of death more than once. It is a miracle that I am still alive… I want to tell my family that I love them very much and I miss them very much. “
Based on various sources of information, Israel announced the killing of at least 35 hostages in captivity in Gaza. Palestinian factions said that some of them were killed in Israeli raids. While Israel confirms this in several cases, Israel says that in other cases, the hostages whose bodies were recovered bore signs of execution.
