BarcelonaIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli army has received the coffins containing the bodies of two hostages returned by Hamas. A statement from Netanyahu's office explains that the Red Cross handed over the remains of two people who were kidnapped by the Islamist group and who, until now, were still in the Gaza Strip. Once in Israel, they will be taken to the Israel Institute of Forensic Sciences for identification. Hamas's armed wing had previously announced that it had recovered the bodies of Israeli hostages Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch. With Thursday's handover, 15 of the 28 deceased Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas, in addition to the 20 who returned to Israel alive. The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas included the return of all Israeli hostages, both living and deceased, but the Islamist group has insisted that it is having difficulty locating the remains of all those kidnapped who died during the war. This issue could derail the fragile ceasefire, which is already hanging by a thread, since Israel has killed approximately 200 people during the truce.
The jihadist militia has requested the entry of bulldozers and heavy machinery to facilitate the process of recovering bodies from under tons of rubble. But Israel accuses the group of deliberately delaying the handover of the corpses. On Tuesday, the Israeli government accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire, arguing that the group had handed over a coffin containing the remains of a hostage who had already been returned to Israel in late 2023. Hamas called these accusations "baseless" and accused Israel of making a false "attempt" to be aggressive.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 211 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, half of them between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. An additional 597 Palestinians were wounded during the truce, which Tel Aviv maintains is holding. This week's death toll was confirmed by an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of reports from medical officials at five Gaza hospitals that received the dead and wounded. The Guardian
This Thursday, the Israeli army launched a dozen airstrikes on Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera, which has journalists on the ground. In their usual rhetoric, the Israel Defense Forces said they carried out "precise" strikes against "terrorist infrastructure that posed a threat to troops" in areas of Gaza where their forces are still deployed.
Bombings in Lebanon
In addition, Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes in Lebanon, where there is also a ceasefire agreement For almost a year, attacks have continued. According to the country's national news agency (NNA), at least two rounds of bombings were reported Thursday morning in the areas of Mahmoudiya and Al Jarmaq, in southern Lebanon. In a statement, Israel claimed it attacked Hezbollah targets: "The presence of infrastructure in the area constitutes a violation of the agreement." These two towns are located north of the Litani River, while the ceasefire agreement stipulates that Hezbollah must end armed activity south of this natural border. Hours earlier, Israel had raided the border town of Blida and killed a civilian. A group of soldiers, supported by several military vehicles, crossed the border and stormed the town hall for more than two hours, killing a civil servant. With this latest death, the number of those killed by Israeli soldiers in the last week has risen to 15, coinciding with an intensification of attacks against southern and eastern Lebanon. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ordered the army to confront the incursions by Israeli troops and criticized the fact that the attack on Blida took place just hours after a meeting of the ceasefire monitoring mechanism.
Massive protest by ultra-Orthodox Jews against conscription
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community confronted Benjamin Netanyahu's government on Thursday in a massive protest with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, according to estimates by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which described it as a "rare display of unity" by this group against conscription. Military service in Israel is mandatory for everyone except the ultra-Orthodox, who make up between 10 and 15 percent of the country's population. The Supreme Court ruled that this exception is illegal, and the army began sending out conscription notices last summer, even though almost all those summoned have failed to report for duty.
According to the Times of Israel, hundreds of participants clashed with police at the end of the demonstration. Additionally, a 15-year-old boy died after falling from a building under construction.
