Hamas hands over to Red Cross the remains of Gaza captive, Israeli military says

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The Israeli military said Monday that the Red Cross had received a coffin containing the remains of a captive held in Gaza, as part of a ceasefire deal.

"According to information provided by the Red Cross, a coffin of a deceased hostage has been transferred into its custody and is on the way to IDF troops in the Gaza Strip," the military said.

An informed source in Hamas confirmed the information to AFP. "The body of an Israeli captive that was recovered today in the Gaza Strip has been handed over to the Red Cross," the source said.

The United Nations and France on Monday condemned Israeli fire near UN peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon, after an incident during which peacekeepers neutralised an Israeli reconnaissance drone.

"We are very concerned about the incident that occurred on Sunday in which an Israeli drone dropped a grenade in the vicinity of a UNIFIL patrol, and subsequently an Israeli tank fired a shot at the peacekeepers in Kfar Kila in the UNIFIL area of operations," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, referring to the incident in southern Lebanon.

"Our colleagues at UNIFIL are in touch with the IDF to protest vehemently what has happened. It's not the first time that we feel we've been targeted in different ways by the IDF (including) pointing lasers or warning shots. It's very, very dangerous," he said.

According to a French diplomatic source, the UNIFIL troops involved in Sunday's incident were French.

The Israeli military said Monday that the Red Cross was en route to receive the body of a deceased captive held by militants in Gaza, the 16th since a ceasefire began.

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

Hamas has so far returned the remains of 15 of the 28 deceased captives since a US-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10.

Pope Leo XIV will pray at the site of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion during an upcoming trip to Lebanon and Turkey, the Vatican said Monday.

On November 30, the pope will head to Lebanon for a visit that will include meetings with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and local clergy, and prayers at the tomb of St. Charbel, the country's patron saint.

On December 2 he will hold a silent prayer at the site of the Beirut port explosion that killed more than 230 people.

The disaster was one of the world's largest non-nuclear blasts, ravaging swathes of the Lebanese capital and injuring more than 6,500 people.

Hamas's armed wing has announced it will hand over the body of the sixteenth deceased captive this evening.

In a statement, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said the handover will take place at 2100 local time (1900 GMT).

The remains of 13 captives remain buried beneath the rubble in Gaza. Hamas is working with specialist teams from Egypt and the Red Cross to locate the bodies.

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hailed a landmark defence agreement with London to buy 20 Eurofighter jets, describing the £8 billion deal as a new symbol of defence cooperation with Britain.

"We regard this.. as a new symbol of the strategic relations between our two close allies," he said after signing the agreement with visiting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his presidential palace in Ankara.

(AFP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a deal on Monday in which Turkey bought 20 Eurofighter Typhoon jets for 8 billion pounds ($10.7 billion), his office said, deepening the NATO allies' defence ties and bolstering Turkish air defences.

In July, Turkey and Britain had signed a preliminary purchase deal for 40 Typhoons approved by Eurofighter consortium members including Germany, Italy and Spain, represented by Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

Starmer met President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday to sign the agreement, which comes as Turkey seeks to leverage the advanced warplanes to make up ground with regional rivals such as Israel, which has unleashed strikes across the Middle East this year.

(Reuters)

The UN rights chief warned Monday that the Sudanese city of El-Fasher was in an "extremely precarious situation", with the likelihood of "ethnically-motivated violations and atrocities" rising after paramilitary forces claimed control.

"The risk of further large-scale, ethnically-motivated violations and atrocities in El-Fasher is mounting by the day," Volker Turk said in a statement, calling for "urgent and concrete action... to ensure the protection of civilians in El-Fasher and safe passage for those trying to reach relative safety".

(AFP)

Lebanese media is reporting that at least two people have been killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on Monday afternoon.

The strike reportedly targeted a sawmill near the town of al-Bayad in Tyre province.

We'll bring you more as we get it.

Israel on Monday confirmed it had allowed a team including Red Cross staff, Egyptian rescuers, and a Hamas member to enter Israel-occupied Gaza to search for the bodies of deceased captives.

"The Red Cross, the Egyptian technical team, and a Hamas person have been permitted to enter beyond the [Israeli army] Yellow Line position in Gaza under close [Israeli army] supervision to identify the location of our hostages," Israel government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told journalists.

A Red Cross spokesperson also confirmed it was part of the team searching for captive bodies.

(AFP and TNA staff)

Israel is preparing a coordinated media strategy ahead of journalists' arrival in Gaza, Hebrew-language media reported on Sunday. 

According to the report, this includes Israeli army-escorted tours for the foreign reporters and "visual evidence" which allegedly shows Hamas building "terror infrastructure".

So far, Israel has only allowed journalists it has vetted into the enclave, as well as pro-Israel influencers, as part of a government campaign amid global condemnation over the famine in the Strip.

The Israeli Ynet news site said that the Supreme Court announced that Israeli and foreign journalists will soon be permitted into Gaza up to the yellow line boundary. 

Israel's defence minister has lifted the state of emergency in the country's south for the first time since 7 October 2023.

The emergency powers gave the military to prevent public gatherings and close off areas.

Israel won't accept the presence of Turkish troops in Gaza under a US plan to permanently end the war, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday.

US President Donald Trump's plan includes an international force in Gaza to help secure a fragile ceasefire which began this month, halting Israel's two-year destruction of the Palestinian territory.

But it remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops to the international force.

Once warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel's onslaught against the Palestinian enclave.

"Countries that want or are ready to send armed forces should be at least fair to Israel," Saar said at a news conference in Budapest.

"Turkey, led by Erdogan, led a hostile approach against Israel," Saar said, speaking alongside his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto.

"So it is not reasonable for us to let their armed forces enter the Gaza Strip and we will not agree to that and we said it to our American friends," Saar said.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

US envoy Morgan Ortagus is expected in Beirut on Monday for talks with Lebanese officials on disarming Hezbollah, sources familiar with her visit said, amid fears in Lebanon that Israel could launch a renewed air war on the group.

Those worries have been driven by days of intensifying Israeli strikes on Lebanon's south and east that have killed more than a dozen people, most of them Hezbollah members, according to Lebanese security sources.

Lebanon fears the bombing shows Israel intends to ramp up its air campaign, despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was intended to end a year-long war between Israel and the Iran-backed group in Lebanon.

Ortagus, the White House's deputy Middle East envoy, is expected to attend a meeting on Wednesday reviewing the Lebanese army's efforts to clear Hezbollah arms caches in the country's south, in line with the 2024 truce.

Another US envoy, Tom Barrack, warned last week that Hezbollah may face a new confrontation with Israel if Lebanese authorities fail to act quickly to disarm the group in full, which Hezbollah has rejected doing so far.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

The Gaza health ministry has increased the death toll since 7 October 2023 to 68,527 after eight bodies were discovered beneath the rubble over the past 48 hours.

Since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October, 472 bodies have been recovered, it said.

Thirteen people were injured over the past two days, taking the total number to almost 170,400.

A second person has died following an Israeli drone strike in a town east of Khan Younis earlier this morning, according to sources in Nasser Hospital, Al Jazeera reports.

The families of Israeli captives on Monday demanded that the next steps in the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire be put on hold until Hamas returns the remaining bodies.

"Hamas knows exactly where every one of the deceased hostages is held. Two weeks have passed since the deadline set in the agreement for the return of all 48 hostages, yet 13 remain in Hamas captivity," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

"The families urge the Government of Israel, the United States administration and the mediators not to advance to the next phase of the agreement until Hamas fulfils all of its obligations and returns every hostage to Israel."

Search teams from Hamas, Egypt and the Red Cross are searching the 13 remaining bodies in Gaza amid pressure from Israel and the US for their return.

(AFP and TNA staff)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday of a "terrible escalation" of fighting in Sudan's famine-stricken city of El-Fasher, where paramilitary Rapid Support Forces say they have seized full control.

Since April 2023, a war between the Sudanese army and the RSF has left tens of thousands of people dead, and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

The RSF said Sunday it had seized full control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the vast western Darfur region not in its hands, in a potential turning point in the country's unrelenting civil war.

"This represents a terrible escalation in the conflict," Guterres said in answer to an AFP question, adding that "the level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable".

(AFP)

Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM party on Monday hailed the withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkish soil as a "critical" step that completed the first phase of Ankara's peace process with the Kurdish militants.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has pursued four decades of violence against the government, began withdrawing its forces on Sunday, urging Turkey to take the necessary legal steps to advance the process which began a year ago when Ankara offered an olive branch to its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.

"This decision to withdraw is the most concrete expression of (the PKK's) resolve on the path to peace," DEM co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan told reporters, describing it as "one of the most critical and significant steps".

"At this point, the first phase of the (peace) process has concluded," he said, urging the government to press ahead with the "critical and vital second phase ... (of) legal and political steps".

(AFP)

The Israeli military on Monday accused UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon of shooting down one of its drones a day earlier during an intelligence-gathering mission.

"Yesterday, an IDF intelligence-gathering drone was downed in the area of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon during a routine intelligence-gathering activity in the area," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on X.

"An initial inquiry suggests that UNIFIL forces stationed nearby deliberately fired at the drone and downed it. The drone's activity did not pose a threat to UNIFIL forces."

Following the shooting of the drone, the military dropped a grenade toward the area where the UAV fell, adding that troops did not fire at the peacekeepers.

On Sunday, UNIFIL said an Israeli drone flew over its patrol in an "aggressive manner".

"The peacekeepers applied necessary defensive countermeasures to neutralise the drone," it said in a statement.

The incident "shows disregard for safety and security of the peacekeepers implementing Security Council mandated tasks in southern Lebanon", it said.

UNIFIL later said another Israeli drone came close to its patrol operating near Kfar Kila and dropped a grenade.

"Moments later, an Israeli tank fired a shot towards the peacekeepers. Fortunately, no injury or damage was caused to the UNIFIL peacekeepers and assets," the statement added.

(AFP and TNA staff)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that Washington does not view a strike that Israel said targeted a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza as a violation of the ceasefire.

Israel said it struck a member of the group on Saturday, accusing the individual of planning to attack Israeli troops.

PIJ denied it was planning an attack.

Speaking aboard President Donald Trump's plane during a trip to Asia, Rubio said: "We don’t view that as a violation of the ceasefire."

(Reuters and TNA staff)

An Israeli drone strike killed at least one person and injured several others in a town east of Khan Younis on Monday morning, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The strike occurred in Abasan al-Kabira, a town inside territory occupied by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military has killed 93 people in Gaza and wounded 324 others since the ceasefire began 16 days ago.

A team of Egyptian specialists is continuing to search for the remaining dead Israeli captives in Gaza alongside Hamas as Israel and the United States step up pressure for their return.

The Egyptians have brought heavy equipment into the strip to help locate the 13 bodies.

Israel has permitted search teams from Hamas, Egypt and the Red Cross to enter Israeli-occupied territory in Gaza to search for the bodies, according to Hebrew outlets.

Hamas has so far returned 18 bodies, as well as the 20 living captives, since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October.

Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians, many of whom showed signs of torture.