 "US and key Arab nations urge swift UN adoption of resolution backing Trump’s Gaza peace plan")
The United States, along with a group of Arab and Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, on Friday urged the UN Security Council to swiftly approve a US-backed resolution endorsing President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.
In a joint statement, the United States, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan and Türkiye said they supported the draft resolution currently before the Council and called for its “swift adoption.”
Russia, meanwhile, has put forward a rival draft text on Gaza.
Meanwhile, 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 U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement.
The bodies were returned after militants late Thursday handed over the body of one of the last four remaining Israeli hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that launched the war in Gaza.
Israel identified the returned body as that of Meny Godard, who was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel. His wife, Ayelet, was killed 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 Oct. 10. There are still three more in Gaza that need to be recovered and handed over. Hamas returned 20 living hostages to Israel on Oct. 13.
Quick Reads
View AllFor 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.
With inputs from agencies
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