Hamas said Wednesday it will return the bodies of four Israeli hostages the following day in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israel had delayed the agreed-upon prisoner release, which threatened to collapse the ceasefire in Gaza. The current six-week first phase of the ceasefire expires this weekend.
Tens of thousands of people lined highways in Israel on Wednesday as the bodies of a mother and her two young sons, killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip, were taken for burial. The Bibas family's plight has been a rallying cry for Israelis seeking the speedy release of all the hostages.
With hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza living in tent camps and damaged buildings, Palestinian health officials said another infant died of hypothermia Wednesday, bringing the toll to seven babies over the past two weeks.
___
Here's the latest:
A freed Israeli hostage pleads for the return of his younger brother
Released hostage Iair Horn said a final goodbye to his neighbors the Bibas family on Wednesday and pleaded for the return of his younger brother, Eitan, who is still being held in Gaza. Horn was released from captivity two weeks ago.
“After 498 days, I was released from Hamas captivity,” Horn said. Looking straight at the dozens of supporters and journalists gathered in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, he repeated: “498 days.”
He noted that 63 other hostages, including his brother, are “fighting just to breathe,” without the freedom to experience the sun. He said that this public comment was the longest he had spent in the sun since Oct. 7, 2023. He urged Israeli leaders to sign an agreement for the second stage of the ceasefire, when the remaining 63 hostages, including the body of an Israeli soldier killed and kidnapped in 2014, are expected to return.
Horn lit a candle and laid a red flower next to a memorial for the Bibas family, along with almost 40 ambassadors to Israel.
“We don’t have time, and the hostages don’t have time,” Horn said. “Eitan is my little brother, but he’s huge, please help me bring him home, because if we don’t bring them back, none of us can truly return.”
Israeli activists say Palestinian doctors from Gaza faced systematic abuse in detention
An Israeli human rights group says Palestinian doctors from Gaza have faced systematic abuse in Israeli military detention, including starvation and medical neglect “amounting to torture.”
The report by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, released Wednesday, is based on interviews with 24 doctors who spent time in Israel’s network of military detention facilities.
Doctors said they were treated especially harshly because they were physicians. Israel raided hospitals in Gaza on several occasions, saying Hamas was using them for military purposes but rarely providing evidence.
Many of the medical workers said they were beaten, including an ambulance driver who said soldiers knocked out a dental filling. Others recounted being strung up by their wrists and having cigarettes extinguished on them.
Israel’s military and prison service did not respond to a request for comment. In response to previous inquiries, Israeli authorities have said they act according to the law and investigate and punish any wrongdoing by individuals.
Turkish foreign minister accuses Israel of expansionism in Syria
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Israel of “regional aggression” and “expansionism” following recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country would not allow Syria’s new army to enter areas south of Damascus.
Fidan on Wednesday also welcomed a national dialogue conference held by Syria’s new rulers who have promised an inclusive political transition.
“The biggest obstacle to peace and stability in our region is Israel’s regional aggression,” Fidan said. “Netanyahu’s recent statements regarding Syria clearly show that Israel is not in favor of peace. Israel must end its regional expansionism under the guise of establishing security.”
Fidan said that Turkey expects the transition process in Syria to prevent separatist movements — a reference to Syrian Kurdish militias, which Ankara views as affiliates of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and seeks to have disbanded.
Israeli authorities charge released Palestinian prisoner with traffic violation
Israeli authorities have filed charges against a Palestinian for riding in a car without a seatbelt while celebrating his release from prison under the ceasefire with Hamas.
Israeli police said Wednesday that Ashraf Zaghir, 46, and two of his family members “stood inside a moving vehicle with their upper bodies outside the car, without seat belts, recklessly endangering themselves and others” in violation of traffic laws.
Israel has tried to stamp out public expressions of joy over the release of prisoners. Hundreds of Palestinians have been released in recent weeks in exchange for the release of hostages abducted by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
Zaghir was convicted of transporting a suicide bomber in a 2002 attack that killed six people and wounded dozens. It was not clear if Israel planned to arrest him again over the traffic violations.
Medics in Gaza report 7th infant death from hypothermia
Palestinian medics say an infant has died from hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, the seventh such death in the last two weeks.
Dr. Munir al-Boursh, director general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said that Seela Abdel Qader, who was less than 2 months old, died Wednesday due to the latest “severe cold wave” that has hit the Palestinian enclave.
Zaher al-Wahedi, head of the ministry’s records department, said the child died in Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in crowded tent camps or buildings damaged in the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas, which has been paused by a fragile ceasefire.
The head of the Arab League condemns Israeli airstrikes in Syria
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions in Syria as a “a reckless provocation and an escalation that seizes the opportunity of political transition in Syria to establish an illegal and illegitimate reality.”
He called for the international community “to take clear positions to condemn this unjustified aggression that aims to ignite tension in the region and put obstacles in the way of political transition in Syria.”
Since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israel has regularly launched airstrike on military sites in Syria and Israeli forces moved into territory in southern Syria adjacent to the Israel-annexed Golan Heights and have made clear they plan to stay indefinitely, citing security concerns.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel won’t allow Syria’s new army to “enter the area south of Damascus.”
There has been no official response from the Syrian interim government, led by members of the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, to Netanyahu’s comments, but Syrian officials have called for Israel to withdraw from the territory it has seized since Assad’s fall.
Israelis line highways as bodies of mother and her children are sent for burial
TEL AVIV, Israel — Tens of thousands of Israelis, some holding flags and signs that read “Forgive us,” lined the highways as the bodies of an Israeli mother and her two children who were killed in Gaza were transported to their burial.
Shiri Bibas was kidnapped with her two sons — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months old — from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas released their bodies last week as part of a fragile ceasefire deal, though initially the militant group did not release the correct body for Shiri Bibas.
Yarden Bibas, their father, was taken separately, and released during the ceasefire last month. The three will be buried on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Wednesday afternoon.
Hamas says the three were killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denies this and said Ariel and Kfir Bibas were killed by their captors.
The Associated Press
