Hospital officials in Gaza say Israel has handed over the bodies of 30 Palestinians

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Red Cross and hospital officials in Gaza say Israel has handed over the bodies of 30 Palestinians, a day after Palestinian militants in Gaza turned over the remains of two hostages to Israel.

A doctor at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis confirmed receiving the bodies and said they were all unidentified. The Red Cross said that its teams had facilitated the transfer.

The exchange is the latest indication that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement is moving forward, despite deadly Israeli strikes on Gaza this week that killed more than 100 people following the death of an Israeli soldier.

Ahmed al-Farra, head of the pediatric unit at Nasser Hospital, confirmed to the AP Friday morning that the hospital received the unidentified bodies of 30 Palestinians from Israel. He said all the bodies of Palestinians received through the ceasefire deal thus far have arrived without identification details.

The return brings the number of Palestinian bodies returned by Israel to 225, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It is unclear if the bodies returned by Israel were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7, attack by Hamas terrorists, died in Israeli custody as detainees, or were recovered from Gaza by troops during the war.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Thursday that the remains returned by Palestinian militants had been confirmed as those of Sahar Baruch and Amiram Cooper, both taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack that set off the war.

Hamas has now returned the remains of 17 hostages since the start of the ceasefire, with 11 others still in Gaza and set to be turned over under the terms of the agreement.

Baruch was preparing to pursue an electrical engineering degree when he was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri. His brother, Idan, was killed in the attack. Three months into Baruch's captivity, the Israeli military said he was killed during an attempted rescue mission. He was 25.

Cooper was an economist and one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz. He was captured along with his wife, Nurit, who was released after 17 days. In June 2024, Israeli officials confirmed that he had been killed in Gaza. He was 84.

A senior U.S. official and a source familiar with negotiations said that in messages passed to Hamas by mediators on Wednesday, the group was told its remaining fighters in the yellow zone had 24 hours to leave or face Israeli strikes. That deadline expired Thursday, after which the senior U.S. official said “Israel will enforce the ceasefire and engage Hamas targets behind the yellow line.”

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations.

The ceasefire, which began Oct. 10, is aimed at winding down a war that is by far the deadliest and most destructive of those ever fought between Israel and Hamas.

In the October 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

In the two years since, Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 68,600 Palestinians in Gaza, according to claims by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.  Israel, which some international critics have accused of committing genocide in Gaza, has disputed the figures.