Closing summary
Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt will probably be reopened on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday. “We are making all the necessary preparations,” Sa’ar was quoted as saying at a conference on the Mediterranean region, being held in Naples.
Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Thursday that Israel remained committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, Reuters reports. He also demanded that Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over.
International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday urged all parties to continue moving in the direction of a sustained lasting peace after a ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would benefit the entire region, Reuters reports.
A senior Hamas official on Thursday accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops “opened fire to remove the threat”.
Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, bringing the total number handed over to 120, the Hamas-run health ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis 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.
Hamas has announced that the remains of all the deceased Israeli hostages that it can reach have been handed back and it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from Gaza’s ruins, amid threats from Israel to resume fighting if the terms of ceasefire are not honoured. Two further bodies were handed over late on Wednesday, after Hamas had already returned the remains of seven of 28 known deceased hostages – along with an eighth body which Israel said was not that of a former hostage.
Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage. Israel had earlier warned it could keep Rafah shut and reduce aid into the Palestinian territory as Hamas, it said, was returning the bodies of dead hostages too slowly, underlining the risks to a ceasefire that halted two years of devastating war and saw all living hostages held by Hamas released.
Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Thursday identified the remains of two more hostages returned from Gaza, as officials and families warned Hamas to hand over the bodies of those still held. The Israeli military said the bodies were those of Nova music festivalgoer Inbar Hayman and Sgt. Muhammad al-Atresh, who were killed in fighting on 7 October, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, igniting the war.
Pope Leo XIV on Thursday cited Gaza as an example of the world’s failure to stop millions of people going hungry, blaming a “soulless economy” and calling on people to rethink their lifestyles and priorities. The crisis was “a clear sign of a prevailing insensitivity, a soulless economy,” Leo told the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) at an event to mark its 80th anniversary.
Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt will probably be reopened on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA on Thursday.
“We are making all the necessary preparations,” Sa’ar was quoted as saying at a conference on the Mediterranean region, being held in Naples.
He did not specify whether the crossing would be opened for the passage of humanitarian aid, or for people.
