Deir Al-Balah: Israeli fire killed two Palestinians in Gaza and two suspected Palestinian attackers in the West Bank on Tuesday as Israel’s government prepared to receive some of the last hostage remains from militants in Gaza.
The return is a key part of a ceasefire between the militant group and Israel’s government. In a statement Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said it was expecting to receive the remains from the Red Cross, which later would be taken to forensic testing to confirm that they were the remains of hostages. It was not immediately clear if they had already been transferred to the Red Cross.
The remains are expected to be of the final two hostages taken by Palestinian militants in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. The Tuesday killings were the latest burst of violence in the Palestinian territories, which has fueled concerns that unrest could spill over and undermine the fragile truce in Gaza. An Israeli drone strike killed a journalist in southern Gaza on Tuesday, officials at Nasser Hospital, which received the body, said.
The journalist, Mohamed Wadi, who used to film through a drone, was killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, the hospital said. The conflict in Gaza has had a heavy toll on Palestinian journalists working on the front lines.
Also on Tuesday, a man in Gaza was fatally shot near the eastern side of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Awda Hospital.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that more than 350 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since a ceasefire on Oct. 11 stopped the Israel-Hamas war. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on either death, but has said that killings have often been in response to firing at their forces by militants. Both Hamas and Israel have accused the other of breaking the terms of the ceasefire. At the same time, Israel’s military has pushed forward its operations in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday morning, the military said troops shot and killed a suspect who stabbed two soldiers as they were confronting him near Ateret, an Israeli settlement north of Ramallah in central West Bank. It said the incident was under review. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces killed an 18-year-old Palestinian north of Ramallah, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it was the same incident.
Israel’s Mada rescue service said two soldiers were lightly wounded. In the southern West Bank, the army said it fatally shot a Palestinian who had earlier carried out a car-ramming attack that wounded a soldier.