Hamas hands over two captive bodies, Israel says Rafah crossing to remain shut

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Israel said Sunday it had received the remains of two more captives handed over by Hamas in Gaza under a US-backed ceasefire agreement.

"Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the bodies of two hostages" which were returned to Israeli security forces in Gaza, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

The bodies will be transferred to a medical analysis centre in Israel to be identified, it added.

The Israeli military said late Saturday that the Red Cross had received the bodies of two hostages held in Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal.

"According to information provided by the Red Cross, two coffins of deceased hostages have been transferred into their custody and are on their way to IDF and ISA forces in the Gaza Strip," the military said in a statement.

The U.S. State Department said on Saturday it had informed the nations guaranteeing the Gaza ceasefire agreement of "credible reports" indicating that Hamas will violate the pact.

"Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire," the department said in a statement.

The LPG-laden tanker MV Falcon was on fire and adrift on Saturday off the coast of Yemen, after it reported an explosion that forced members of its crew to abandon the vessel, the European Union's naval force Aspides said in a statement.

The cause of the explosion was unclear but most likely an accident, according to initial indications, Aspides said. It added that at least 15% of the Cameroon-flagged vessel was on fire.

British security firm Ambrey said the tanker was not believed to match the target profile of Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi militants.

A Houthi defence ministry official said the group had no connection to the incident, according to the Houthi-run Saba news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Saturday that the war in Gaza wouldn't be over until Hamas was disarmed and the Palestinian territory demilitarised.

He said late on Saturday that "Phase B also involves the disarming of Hamas - or more precisely, the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip, following the stripping of Hamas of its weapons".

"When that is successfully completed - hopefully in an easy way, but if not, in a hard way -- then the war will end," he added in an appearance on right-wing Israeli Channel 14.

Hamas has so far resisted the idea and since the pause in fighting has moved to reassert its control over the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said the Red Cross was headed to southern Gaza late Saturday where it would receive "several" captive bodies to be handed over as part of a ceasefire deal.

"The Red Cross is on its way to the meeting point in the southern Gaza Strip, where several coffins of deceased hostages will be transferred into its custody," the military said in a statement.

Earlier, Hamas' armed wing said it would hand over bodies of two captives on Saturday.

A Cameroon-flagged liquefied natural gas tanker issued a distress signal after an explosion onboard while off the coast of Yemen, British maritime security firm Ambrey and the European Union's naval task force reported on Saturday.

The incident occurred in the Gulf of Aden, about 60 nautical miles south of Ahwar, on the southern coast of Yemen, according to Ambrey.

According to the British Royal Navy-run UKMTO agency, a fire started aboard the vessel after it was hit by an unknown projectile. Ambrey said the crew had signalled their intention to abandon ship and that a search and rescue operation was underway.

Ambrey said that the LNG tanker, bound for Djibouti from Sohar in Oman, did not belong to the category of vessels usually targeted by Houthi rebels in the area.

The Houthi-run official news agency Saba quoted an official military source as denying involvement in an attack on a ship in the Gulf of Aden. "The Yemeni armed forces had nothing to do with that incident," it quoted the source as saying.

US envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's chief negotiator on the Middle East, has said that he felt "betrayed" when Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas negotiators in Qatar last month.

In a CBS interview alongside Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who worked with Witkoff on the brokering of a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the presidential envoy said he learned of the September 9 attack in Doha the morning after it happened.

"I think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed," Witkoff told the CBS news program "60 Minutes" in excerpts released Friday. The full interview is scheduled to air on Sunday.

"It had a metastasising effect because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks," Witkoff said.

"We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them."

Hamas' armed wing said it will hand over the bodies of two captives later on Saturday as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said on its Telegram channel that the group will "handover at 10:00 PM (1900 GMT) today the bodies of two Israeli captives, whose remains were recovered earlier today in the Gaza Strip".

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the Rafah crossing would reopen only after Hamas hands over the bodies of all deceased hostages still held in Gaza.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed that the Rafah crossing remain closed until further notice," the statement read.

"Its reopening will be considered based on how Hamas fulfils its obligations to return the hostages and the bodies of the deceased, and to implement the agreed-upon terms" of the ceasefire, the office added.

A UN official has warned that unexploded ordnance in the Gaza Strip poses a growing threat as displaced residents return to their homes under the current ceasefire.

Luke Irving, Chief of the UN Mine Action Programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a press statement that the risk of unexploded weapons remains high and that clearing them will take considerable time.

The Palestinian embassy in Egypt has announced that the Rafah border crossing will reopen on Monday to allow Palestinian citizens in Egypt to return to Gaza.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the embassy urged those wishing to travel to register in advance.

It added that embassy officials will contact registered citizens to inform them of meeting points and departure times ahead of the journey to the Rafah crossing.

At least one person has been killed after two Israeli missiles struck the town of Deir Kifa in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district, according to the country’s National News Agency (NNA).

Citing the Health Ministry, the NNA reported that the attack targeted a vehicle, resulting in one fatality.

The Israeli army has defended its killing of 11 members of a single family in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, claiming the strike targeted a "suspicious vehicle."

According to the Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv, the Israeli military alleged that Hamas was attempting to "test the vigilance and responses" of its forces along the so-called "yellow line" an area marking Israeli army control inside Gaza.

The paper described a "series of incidents" on Friday that culminated in the deaths of 11 Palestinians, including seven children and three women.

An Israeli army spokesperson said, "A suspicious vehicle was spotted crossing the yellow line and approaching Israeli army forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip. Warning fire was opened, but the vehicle continued to advance in a manner that posed a direct threat to the forces, so they opened fire to neutralise the threat in accordance with instructions."

The Gaza Health Ministry has reported that the bodies of 29 people have arrived at hospitals across the enclave over the past 48 hours, as part of its latest update on casualties from Israeli attacks.

In its daily statistical report, the ministry said the figure includes “23 recovered martyrs, two who died from their injuries, and four who were killed as a result of direct targeting by the [Israeli] occupation,” along with 21 others injured during the same period.

It added that 11 more victims from the Abu Shaaban family massacre remain under the rubble and have not yet been included in the official count.

As previously reported, Israel killed 11 members of the same family in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood — the deadliest attack since the ceasefire began.

According to the ministry, Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023 have killed 68,116 people and wounded 170,200 others.

Gaza’s Civil Defence says it has recovered the bodies of nine people following an Israeli airstrike that targeted displaced residents in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood yesterday.

The remaining two bodies from the same attack — which killed a total of 11 people — were recovered earlier, according to previous reports.

Hamas has condemned the rising number of Israeli attacks and settler assaults in the occupied West Bank, warning that such actions “will not succeed in breaking the will of our people and their steadfastness on their land.”

In a statement posted on Telegram, the group said: “They will only fuel further anger and expand its reach in the West Bank in response to the occupier’s crimes and escalating aggression.”

While the ceasefire in Gaza between Hamas and Israel largely remains in place, Israeli forces and settlers continue to carry out raids, attacks, and arrests across the occupied West Bank.

A ship caught fire Saturday in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen after being struck by a projectile, the British military said.

The incident comes as Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been attacking ships through the Red Sea corridor. However, the rebels did not immediately claim the attack, though it can take them hours or even days to do so.

The maritime security firm Ambrey described the ship as a tanker that was “en route from Sohar, Oman, to Djibouti.” It said radio traffic suggested the crew was preparing to abandon ship and a search-and-rescue effort was underway.

The United Nations' aid chief took stock of the monumental task of restoring basic necessities in the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday, and Israel received the remains of another October 7 hostage as a ceasefire entered its second week.

In a short convoy of white UN jeeps, relief coordinator Tom Fletcher and his team wound their way through the twisted rubble of shattered homes to inspect a wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City.

"I drove through here seven to eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing and, to see the devastation, this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland, and it's absolutely devastating to see," he told AFP news agency.

Surveying the damaged pumping equipment and a grim lake of sewage at the Sheikh Radwan wastewater plant, Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a "massive, massive job".

The British diplomat said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes trying to dig latrines in the ruins.

"They're telling me most of all they want dignity," he said. "We've got to get the power back on so we can start to get the sanitation system back in place.

"We have a massive 60 day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school."

British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it was aware of an ongoing incident off the coast of Yemen's Ahwar, without giving further details.

Israel returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Saturday, bringing the total number handed over to 135, the health ministry in the territory said.

Under a ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.

Late on Friday, Hamas handed over the body of another Israeli hostage.

Since the ceasefire began, Hamas has handed over the bodies of nine Israelis and one Nepalese student.

The Gaza health ministry said that some of the bodies returned on Saturday bore signs of "abuse, beatings, handcuffing and blindfolding".

The ministry made similar claims regarding other bodies previously returned under the ceasefire agreement.

The Israeli military has said these claims were "Hamas's false propaganda".

"Furthermore, all the bodies returned so far are from combatants within the Gaza Strip," it told AFP news agency on Friday.

The Red Cross has arrived at the Kissufim crossing in Gaza, delivering the fourth batch of bodies of Palestinians detained by Israel, according to Al Jazeera English.

Under the terms of the ongoing ceasefire agreement, Israel is to return the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every one body of an Israeli captive handed over by Hamas.

The latest exchange follows Hamas’s return of another Israeli body last night.

Israeli forces have opened heavy fire in the town of Abasan al-Jadida, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site al-Araby al-Jadeed.

Meanwhile, Israeli naval boats fired on a group of Palestinian fishermen near Port of Gaza. No casualties have been reported so far.

Local media have reported a series of incidents across the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in the town of al-Jib, northwest of occupied East Jerusalem.

In southern Bethlehem, soldiers allegedly beat a young man after detaining him. The Israeli army also opened fire on olive pickers in the town of Kobar, northwest of Ramallah, though no injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, troops arrested three Palestinians during raids in the Hebron governorate and two others in Nablus. In southern Salfit, a Palestinian man was injured and bruised after settlers attacked him while he was harvesting olives.

The Israeli army has announced that the body of Eliyahu “Churchill” Margalit, returned by Hamas, has been identified and is now ready for burial.

In an official update, the military said Israeli authorities had completed the identification process and informed Margalit’s family that his body was prepared for the funeral.

According to the army, Margalit, aged 75, was killed by Hamas fighters at the Nir Oz settlement during the October 7, 2023, attack, and his body was subsequently taken to Gaza. He was officially pronounced dead in December 2023.

“He is survived by a wife, three children and grandchildren,” the Israeli military said, adding that his daughter, Nili Margalit, was also abducted but later released under an agreement in November 2023.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has announced on X that 8,000 of its trained teachers are prepared to help Gaza’s children return to school. The organisation urged the Israeli government to permit it to resume its official operations.

UNRWA was banned by the Israeli government earlier this year.

Prominent Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti's son has said Israeli guards beat his father during a prison transfer last month, an accusation denied by Israel's prison authorities.

"Eight guards started beating him up until he passed out," Arab Barghouti told AFP news agency, describing an incident he said took place on September 14.

Arab Barghouti said he only learnt of the attack after five other inmates who had been with his father were able to communicate with the outside world.

A senior leader of Fatah party, he is often described by supporters as the "Palestinian Mandela".

An Israel Prison Service spokesperson called the reports "fake", saying the service "operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates".

Arab Barghouti said the alleged assault happened while his father was being transferred from Ganot prison in the south to Megiddo in the north.

Israel's Prison Service declined to share Barghouti's current location.

Arab Barghouti said the guards responsible for his transfer were the ones who attacked Barghouti.

"He got some ribs broken and (the five other inmates) said that when he got to Megiddo prison, they were shocked that he could barely walk", Arab said adding that his father "couldn't walk for days" as a result.

Barghouti is among several high-profile inmates whose release Hamas sought during a recent prisoner exchange conducted under a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

A Palestinian man has been arrested in the US state of Louisiana on terrorism-related charges for alleged involvement in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Justice Department said Friday.

Mahmoud Amin Ya'qub Al-Muhtadi, 33, is also accused of lying on the visa application he submitted in Cairo to enter the United States in September 2024.

According to court documents, Al-Muhtadi was a Gaza-based operative of the National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

"On the morning of October 7, 2023, Al-Muhtadi learned about the Hamas invasion, armed himself, gathered others, and crossed into Israel with the intention of assisting in Hamas's terrorist attack," the criminal complaint said.

"Evidence shows that Al-Muhtadi's phone utilized a cell tower located near Kibbutz Kfar Aza in Israel, the location of a horrifying massacre by Hamas and its supporters," it added.

The criminal complaint includes excerpts from telephone calls purportedly made by Al-Muhtadi on the morning of October 7 discussing his plans to join the attack.

The Justice Department said Al-Muhtadi's arrest stemmed from information received from the Israeli government and the work of a joint task force set up to investigate the October 7 attack, which left 49 Americans among the more than 1,200 dead.

Al-Muhtadi, who was living in Lafayette, Louisiana, is charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and visa fraud.