Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the remains of the three people did not belong to hostages.
It was unclear who the remains belonged to….
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….Ceasefire under strain
Since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 17 hostages. Eleven remain in Gaza. Militants have released one or two bodies every few days. Israel has urged faster progress. Hamas has said the work is complicated by widespread devastation and Israeli military presence in some areas.Israel has been releasing the unidentified remains of 15 Palestinians for the remains of each Israeli hostage. The number of Palestinian bodies returned by Israel since the ceasefire began now stands at 225. Only 75 have been identified by families , according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
…Questions around security
Jordan’s foreign minister warned Saturday that Israel maintaining a military presence in Gaza puts the ceasefire at risk.Speaking at the Manama Dialogue security summit, Ayman Safadi added it was “imperative” to have a Palestinian police force maintaining security, supported by an international stabilization force with a U.N. Security Council mandate.
“With Israel staying in Gaza, I think security is going to be a challenge,” Safadi said. “Israel cannot stay in 53% of Gaza and then expect security to be achieved.”\
The 20-point U.S. peace plan includes the formation and deployment of a temporary international stabilization force of Arab and other partners that would work with Egypt and Jordan on securing Gaza’s borders and ensure the ceasefire is respected. The U.S. has ruled out American soldiers in Gaza….
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Ameen al-Zein, like many in Gaza, was overjoyed by the news of the ceasefire. It was a rare moment of relief after years of fear and loss. On Tuesday night he gave an interview to a local NGO urging people to return to their homes in northern Gaza now that fighting had stopped. Just half an hour later, Zein was dead, killed in an Israeli bombing on the school where he had been sheltering in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
He died without being able to fulfil his vow to his wife that they would return to Beit Lahia and pitch a tent over the rubble, eager to be home even if their house was no longer there.
“When the most recent truce was announced, Abu Luay felt so happy and relieved,” said his wife, Maryam, using a family name for him. “He told me that finally the bloodshed would stop and people could live in peace. Sadly, that feeling didn’t last. Israel violated the ceasefire again.”
Zein was one of 115 people killed and 352 injured during 24 hours of Israeli bombardment of Gaza this week, according to the Gaza health ministry. The strikes came after Hamas returned body parts of a hostage whose remains Israeli troops had recovered two years before, and Palestinian militants attacked Israeli troops in southern Gaza.
It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the ceasefire was put in place on 10 October and one of the deadliest days in the whole of the two-year war.
The bombings were just the latest in a series of Israeli violations of the three-week-long ceasefire in Gaza. After the initial enthusiasm over the ceasefire announcement, worry has set in among the people of Gaza. They are fearful that the ceasefire does not mean an end to the war but just less frequent and more random bursts of violence they are unable to predict. That randomness makes their own futures hard to imagine, much less to plan.
Hussain Abu Munir feels the uncertainty of the ceasefire on his daily commute to work. He travels in a bus filled with other medical professionals displaced to southern Gaza to their workplaces in northern Gaza.
To gather so openly with other medical professionals is already unnerving after two years of war where medical workers have become targets. At least 1,722 healthcare workers were killed during the war in Gaza, according to Medical Aid for Palestine. But the journey itself, through the Netzarim checkpoint into northern Gaza, makes Abu Munir fear for his life.
“Each day we go and return, it feels like embarking on a dangerous, uncertain journey, without protection or assurance,” said the 40-year-old nurse. “My biggest fear is not for myself but for my children, whom I leave alone in the south when I go to work.”
He said he was afraid Israel might close the Netzarim checkpoint while he was at work, meaning he would be unable to return to his children….
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