Gaza hospital receives 15 Palestinian bodies under ceasefire exchange deal
GAZA: Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday said it had received the bodies of 15 Palestinian prisoners under the US-brokered ceasefire exchange deal.
“The tenth batch of the bodies of Palestinian martyrs has arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in the Gaza Strip, numbering 15 martyrs,” the hospital said in a statement, noting that 285 bodies were received under the agreement in total.
They were returned in exchange for the latest hostage body handed back from Gaza on Tuesday, that of Israeli-American soldier Itay Chen.
Under the terms of the US-brokered agreement in effect since October 10, Israel returns 15 bodies of Palestinians for every body it receives of an Israeli hostage who had been held in Gaza.
At the start of the truce, Hamas held 48 hostages in Gaza — 20 alive and 28 deceased.
The militants have since released all the surviving captives, as well as 21 of the deceased’s remains.
Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the bodies of deceased hostages, while the Palestinian group says the process is slow because many are buried beneath Gaza’s rubble.
The group has repeatedly called on mediators and the Red Cross to provide it with the necessary equipment and personnel to recover the bodies.
Meanwhile,Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has written a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, reiterating Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinian people, Wafa news agency reported.
Saudi Crown Prince voices support for Palestine in letter to Abbas: In the letter, the Saudi Crown Prince said his nation remained committed to the Palestinians’ pursuit of an independent state.
He added that Saudi Arabia would work with international partners to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza and that Palestinian tax revenues withheld by Israel are released.
Israeli raids and settler assaults persist across occupied West Bank: Violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has continued overnight, with reports of further raids and detentions by Israeli forces and settlers, Al Jazeera reported citing Wafa news agency.
Israeli troops detained a young Palestinian man from the Am’ari refugee camp during a raid in Ramallah.
Settlers raided Palestinian farmland in the town of al-Attarra, northwest of Ramallah, and seized olive harvests.
In Beit Inan, northwest of occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers assaulted two Palestinian brothers while they were harvesting olives.
Elsewhere, settlers set fire to farmland near al-Lubban Asharqiya, south of Nablus.
As reported earlier, Israeli forces and settlers carried out more than 2,300 attacks across the West Bank last month, according to the PLO’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission. Web Desk
