Israeli forces retrieve Thai hostage’s body amid ongoing airstrikes

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, as Israeli airstrikes killed 55 people, according to local medics.

Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian militant group called the Mujahedeen 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 devastating war in Gaza.

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The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid group, said on Saturday it was unable to distribute assistance to Palestinian civilians, blaming threats by Hamas, which Gaza’s dominant militant group denied.

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 two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, 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.

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The Mujahedeen 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.

The military said on Saturday it had killed As’ad Abu Sharaiya, who served as the head of the Mujahideen, but there was no confirmation from the group.

Israel has in recent weeks expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

Medics in Gaza said 55 people in total were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the enclave on Saturday.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by airstrikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, 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 was going to strike there after rockets were launched by militants in the vicinity.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday that Gaza’s hospitals only had fuel for 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 coordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had uncovered “an underground tunnel route, including a command and control center from which senior Hamas commanders” operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.

It added that it had located several bodies of militants whose identities were “under examination”.

The Israeli government and military said last month it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief, but Hamas did not confirm his death.

US-backed aid group halts distributions

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the GHF said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticised by humanitarian organisations for alleged lack of neutrality, said it was unable to distribute any humanitarian aid on Saturday because Hamas had issued “direct threats” against its operations.

“These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,” the GHF said in a statement in which it also said it intended to resume aid distribution “without delay”.

A Hamas official told Reuters he had no knowledge of such “alleged threats”.

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 1-3.

Eyewitnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on Tuesday it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian “suspects” who were advancing towards their positions.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to the U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.