Gaza death toll tops 69,000 as Israel and militants again exchange remains

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) – More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war so far, Gaza health officials said Saturday, as both sides completed the latest exchange of bodies under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire.

The latest jump in deaths occurred as more bodies are recovered from the rubble in the devastated Gaza Strip since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, and as previously unidentified bodies are identified. The toll also includes Palestinians killed by strikes since the truce took hold, which Israel says target remaining militants.

Israel on Saturday returned the remains of another 15 Palestinians to Gaza, according to hospital officials in the territory, a day after militants returned the remains of a hostage to Israel. He was identified as Lior Rudaeff, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s office. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that Rudaeff was born in Argentina.

The exchanges are the central part of the ceasefire’s initial phase, which requires that Hamas return all hostage remains as quickly as possible. For each Israeli hostage returned, Israel has been releasing the remains of 15 Palestinians.

The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. It began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.

Also Saturday, Israeli settlers staged two attacks on Palestinian farmers, paramedics, activists and journalists in the occupied West Bank as settler violence reaches new highs in the territory.

Palestinians on Saturday checked the newly returned remains. Ahmed Dheir, director of forensic medicine at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, said that the remains of 300 people have now been returned, with 89 identified.

“We do not have sufficient resources or the DNA to match them with the martyrs’ families,” Dheir said. Unidentified ones will be buried in batches.

Hopeful families looked into the body bags of decomposed remains. “Close it, it’s not him,” one family said.

“I always come here. I have not lost hope. I am still waiting for him,” said the mother of a missing boy, who did not give her name.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of people killed there since the war began has risen to 69,169. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.

The ministry said 284 people were added to the total after their identities were verified between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7.

And over the past three days, 10 bodies were brought to Gaza hospitals – nine retrieved from under the rubble and one newly killed, the ministry said. Since the ceasefire began, 241 people have been killed in Gaza, it said.

It added that a large number of Palestinians remain missing.

Israel’s military on Saturday said that soldiers killed two militants who had approached troops, one in northern Gaza and the other in the south.

Palestinian health officials said 11 people were injured in an attack by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including journalists, medics, international activists and farmers, as settler violence reaches new highs during this year’s olive harvest.

The U.N. humanitarian office has reported more Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in October than in any other month since the office began keeping track in 2006. There were more than 260 attacks, or an average of eight incidents per day, the office said.

Activists and medics have flocked to this year’s olive harvest to help Palestinian farmers safely reach their fields.

A video circulating in Palestinian media showed the inside of a West Bank hospital where the injured – bandaged and bloody – were brought from Saturday’s attack on the town of Beita.

Jonathan Pollak, a longtime activist, told The Associated Press that he was picking olives when dozens of masked Israeli settlers, armed with clubs, descended, chasing them and lobbing rocks.

Pollak said he saw five settlers converge on a journalist and her security guard. He watched the settlers beat and bludgeon her, denting her helmet. Pollak was hit in the head with a rock and taken to the hospital.

“It’s a pattern we see every day,” Pollak said. “This is just one finger in the iron fist of Israeli policy aiming to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.”

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare, and prosecutions even rarer. Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported in 2022 that based on statistics from the Israeli police, charges were pressed in only 3.8% of cases of settler violence, with most cases opened and closed without action being taken.

Also Saturday, Palestinian paramedics reported another settler attack in a nearby village, Burin. The Palestinian Red Crescent said settlers injured four international activists and one 57-year-old man.

Israel’s military said soldiers responded to a report of rock-throwing at an Israeli vehicle and that Israeli civilians then hurled rocks at harvesters. It said Israeli and Palestinian civilians were injured.

___

Julia Frankel reported from Jerusalem, and Sally Abou AlJoud from Beirut.