Gaza death toll tops 69,000 as Israel and militants again exchange remains
More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war so far, Gaza health officials said on Saturday, as both sides completed the latest exchange of bodies under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire.
The latest jump in the death toll occurred as more bodies are recovered from the rubble in the devastated strip since the ceasefire began on October 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 strip, a day after militants returned the remains of a hostage to Israel.
He was identified as Lior Rudaeff, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s office. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Mr 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 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
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 the remains of 300 people have now been returned, with 89 identified.
69,169 Palestinian death toll from Gaza’s Health Ministry
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 October 31 and November 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 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 UN 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.
Rights groups say that arrests for settler violence are rare, and prosecutions even rarer.
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