Israel retrieves body of Thai man, latest hostage recovered from 2023 Hamas attack
Days earlier, bodies of Canadian Israeli Judih Weinstein and her husband were recovered
Israel's defence minister says the military has retrieved the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.
Israel Katz made the announcement on Saturday as further Israeli airstrikes killed 45 people, according to local medics.
The news comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military had recovered the bodies of Canadian Israeli Judih Weinstein and her husband, Israeli American Gadi Haggai — who were also among the 251 people abducted by the Islamist militant group.
Weinstein was among several Canadian citizens killed in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Pinta's body was held by the Palestinian militant group the Mujahideen Brigades and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
Israel's military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of Weinstein and Haggai.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahideen Brigades, which previously denied killing people they took captive, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahideen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across Gaza as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
Medics in Gaza said 45 people in total were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the enclave on Saturday.
At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra, local health authorities said.
More than one missile landed in the area. The target seemed to have been a multi-floor residential building, but the
explosion damaged several other houses nearby, according to witnesses and media.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. It later warned people to evacuate the nearby district of Jabalia, saying it would strike there after rockets were launched by militants in the vicinity.
Palestinian health officials said Saturday that Gaza's hospitals had sufficient fuel for only three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.
There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that co-ordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.
U.S.-backed aid group halts distributions
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza's 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the GHF suspended operations and asked the Israeli military to review security protocols after Palestinian hospital officials said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near distribution points between June 1 and 3.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around nine million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to UN and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
Israel is facing growing international pressure over its offensive against Hamas, which has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis and displaced most of its population.
But there is no end in sight for the war that was sparked when Hamas-led militants took the 251 hostages and killed around 1,200 people in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
Israel's military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and left much of the densely populated coastal enclave in ruins.
Families of remaining hostages say they fear those who are alive are in danger from the continued Israeli offensive and those dead will be lost forever. Israel says the campaign is aimed at bringing them all back and ending Hamas rule in Gaza.
Israeli officials say more than 40 hostages have been killed in captivity, some in the course of Israeli strikes and others killed by their captors.
With files from CBC News