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10-01-2025
JERUSALEM/ GAZA STRIP: Israeli forces have killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in the past day, medics said, as authorities warned that more hospitals in the enclave could close over dire fuel shortages.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expresses optimism about the prospects of a ceasefire and captives release deal in Gaza, saying “we’re very close” to reaching an agreement.
Israel’s military says it has recovered the body of captive Yousef al-Ziyadna from an underground tunnel in the city of Rafah in Gaza.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 45,936 Palestinians and wounded 109,274 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day and more than 200 were taken captive.
Previously, we reported that Israel’s far-right finance minister said there “should have been no negotiations with Hamas” after outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested a ceasefire for captives deal is close.
During a live Q&A with Israeli citizens on Israel’s Channel 7 on Wednesday evening, Smotrich also warned that there will be a “very fundamental change” in the way Israel will “conduct the war in Gaza”.
“We are preparing hell for Hamas,” Smotrich said.
The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) says the death of a Palestinian aid worker who was wounded in an Israeli air attack on a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse on January 5 has taken the number of humanitarian workers killed in Israel’s war on Gaza to 369.
The figure includes 263 UNRWA staff.
OCHA, in its weekly update on Gaza, noted that Israeli forces also fired 16 bullets at a clearly marked WFP convoy on January 5, although no injuries were reported.
It also highlighted a statement from Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, in which the group said eight of its staff had been killed in the Israeli war. But MSF said it is “yet to receive accountability or admission of responsibility for the killing, maiming, or dehumanization of [its] staff and patients”.
The Israeli military has issued a statement on what it called a “complex and difficult operation”.
It said the “troops located and recovered the body of hostage Yousef al-Ziyadna from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip and returned his body to Israel”.
The military also offered more information on Defence Minister Israel Katz’s claim the remains of al-Ziyadna’s 23-year-old son, Hamza, had been brought to Israel.
It clarified that the son’s body had not been recovered, although “findings were located related to Hamza… which raise serious concerns for his life”.
The two men were members of Israel’s Bedouin community, a Palestinian minority who have Israeli citizenship.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing the relatives of captives held in Gaza, says al-Ziyadna, 53, had 19 children and had worked for 17 years at the dairy farm of a kibbutz that was among the communities Hamas had attacked on October 7, 2023. Al-Ziyadna’s teenage children, Bilal and Aisha, were among the 100 captives released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
Al-Ziyadna and his son, Hamza, were both thought to be still alive before the military’s announcement.
Israel believes a third of the remaining 100 captives held in Gaza are dead. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
