KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza health officials said Saturday that over 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war so far, as Israel and Hamas completed the latest exchange of bodies under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire agreement.
The latest jump in deaths is attributed to more bodies being recovered under the rubble in the devastated strip since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, and also because previously unidentified bodies were identified. It also includes Palestinians killed by strikes on the territory since the truce took hold, attacks that Israel says are to take out remaining militants.
Though fragile, the deal appears to be holding, with Israel earlier on Saturday returning the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, according to hospital officials in the strip. The handover came a day after militants returned the remains of a hostage to Israel.
The exchanges of the dead are the central component of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal, which requires that Hamas return all hostage remains as quickly as possible. The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.
The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel 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.
Death toll in Gaza climbs
Nearly a month after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, authorities in Gaza continue to recover bodies amid widespread destruction, using limited equipment and resources.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said that the total number of people killed in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas-led attack on Israel Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 69,169, after more of the dead were identified and more bodies were recovered.
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 additional people were recently added to the cumulative total after their identities were verified between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7.
Also, over the past three days, 10 bodies were brought to Gaza hospitals — nine retrieved from under the rubble and one newly killed — along with six injured, the ministry also said. It added that a large number of Palestinians remain missing.
Since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, a total of 241 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry
Israel confirmed Saturday that the remains given back the previous night were of an Israeli hostage who died while fighting Hamas in the militants’ initial attack. He was identified as Lior Rudaeff, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s office.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Rudaeff was born in Argentina and moved to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, a farming community in southern Israel, as a child. He volunteered for more than 40 years as an ambulance driver and was a member of the community’s emergency response team.
For each Israeli hostage returned, Israel has been releasing the remains of 15 Palestinians. Following the return of Rudaeff, Israel on Saturday handed over the 15 Palestinian bodies and Nasser Hospital in the central Gaza city of Khan Younis confirmed receiving them.
Since the ceasefire started, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 23 hostages, including Rudaeff, leaving five still remaining in Gaza. Israel has so far handed over the bodies of 300 Palestinians.
Gaza health officials have struggled to identify the bodies without access to DNA kits, and have so far identified 89 of them, Gaza’s Health Ministry says.
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 attack comes days after the U.N. humanitarian office said that there had been 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 over 260 attacks, or an average of eight incidents per day, the office reported.
Activists and medics have flocked to this year’s olive harvest to help Palestinian farmers safely reach and return from their fields. The groups have repeatedly come under attack over the past few weeks.
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 solidarity activist, was part of the group attacked. He told the AP in an interview that he was picking olives when suddenly dozens of masked Israeli settlers, armed with clubs, descended, chasing them and lobbing rocks.
He ran down a steep hill to avoid the onslaught.
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 himself was hit in the back of the head with a rock and taken to the hospital.
Speaking shortly after his release from the hospital, Pollak said it would be wrong to think of the attack as an isolated action taken by extremist settlers. To him, it was just the latest episode in a string of similar onslaughts.
“It’s a pattern we see every day,” said Pollak. “This is just one finger in the iron fist of Israeli policy aiming to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.”
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 being opened and closed without any action being taken.
Also Saturday, Palestinian paramedics reported another settler attack in a nearby village, Burin. The Palestinian Red Crescent said settlers had injured four international activists and one 57-year-old man.
The military did not immediately comment on either incident.
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Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Abou AlJoud from Beirut.