Israel returns 15 Palestinian bodies to Gaza, where displaced families endure winter rains

Israel returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza on Friday, officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said, in the latest step to fulfilling the terms of the fragile US-brokered ceasefire agreement.

The bodies were returned after Palestinian terror groups late on Thursday handed over the body of one of the last four remaining Israeli hostages taken during the October 7, 2023, attack that launched the war in Gaza.

Israel identified the returned body as that of Meny Godard, who was murdered and abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel. His wife, Ayelet, was murdered during the attack.

The armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said Godard’s body was recovered in southern Gaza.

The remains of 25 hostages have been returned to Israel since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on October 10. There are still three more in Gaza that need to be recovered and handed over. Hamas returned 20 living hostages to Israel on October 13.

For each hostage returned, Israel has released the remains of 15 Palestinians, an exchange central to the ceasefire’s first phase. Overall, the number of bodies of Palestinians received so far is 330, of which only 95 have been formally identified, according to Gaza health ministry officials.

Health officials in Gaza have said identifying the remains handed over by Israel is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits.

The bodies of 27 unidentified Palestinians were interred in Gaza on Friday.

Displaced families endure wet, wintry conditions

As winter settles over Gaza and the first rains begin, displaced families are struggling to keep their makeshift shelters from collapsing under the weather.

As cloudy skies Friday threatened another downpour in Gaza City, Abdel Rahim Halawa, a father of seven children, worked to fasten a tarp over his tent made of wood, blankets and sheets of plastic.

“All of the mattresses and blankets got drenched this evening. If more rain comes on us, we don’t know how we can live anymore,” he said.

Some families have taken shelter in what remains of destroyed buildings. One family lives inside a section of concrete held up by a single crooked column, its open side covered with a piece of tarp.

“Yes, it might collapse. Some committees came and told us it’s forbidden to live inside of it, but we have no alternative, especially in the winter with the severe cold,” said Saed Salhi, who is living in the structure with four members of his family, all displaced from their home in Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

The next parts of the 20-point ceasefire plan call for creating an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and disarming Hamas.