Israel has returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, hospital officials said on Saturday. The move came a day after militants in Gaza handed over the remains of an Israeli hostage as part of a fragile US-brokered ceasefire that has brought a brief pause to the two-year-long war.
According to the agreement, Israel returns the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every Israeli hostage’s remains received. The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis confirmed that the 15 bodies were delivered there on Saturday.
Israel’s government said the remains returned on Friday night belonged to Lior Rudaeff, an Israeli man who was killed during Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, the assault that triggered the ongoing war. Rudaeff was identified after forensic testing, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Rudaeff was born in Argentina and later settled in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, a small farming community in southern Israel. He had volunteered for over 40 years as an ambulance driver and served in the local emergency response team. He was killed during Hamas’s attack, and his body was taken to Gaza by the militants.
Since the ceasefire began on October 10, Palestinian groups have released the remains of 23 hostages, including Rudaeff’s, though five more are still believed to be held in Gaza. Israel, in return, has handed over the bodies of about 300 Palestinians so far.
Health officials in Gaza say identifying the returned bodies has been difficult due to limited access to DNA testing equipment. So far, they have been able to identify only 84 of them.
The ceasefire deal, brokered by the United States, also requires Israel to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza. However, the United Nations says the help reaching civilians is still far below what is needed.
Farhan Haqq, the UN’s deputy spokesperson, said more than 200,000 metric tons of aid are ready to be sent to Gaza, but only around 37,000 tons, mostly food, have been allowed in.
The war began after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel in October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s massive military campaign that followed has, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, killed over 68,800 Palestinians so far. The ministry is run by Gaza’s Hamas-led government but is staffed by medical professionals whose records are generally seen as credible by independent observers.
