Officials in the war-torn region report the overall death toll now exceeds 69,000, and Israeli forces have killed at least three Palestinians in attacks across Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire.
Saturday’s latest killings came as Hamas announced it would recover the bodies of Israeli soldiers from tunnels near Rafah in southern Gaza.
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Victims of Saturday’s Israeli attack included a Palestinian man killed in the central Breiji refugee camp, medical officials said.
Israeli forces also announced they had killed two other Palestinians who allegedly crossed the so-called “Yellow Line” in the northern and southern territories.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced that Israeli forces have killed more than 240 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
It also announced that the total number of people killed in the enclave since October 7, 2023 has increased to 69,169, after more deaths were identified and more bodies recovered from the rubble.
Adding to the death toll, one Palestinian child was killed when an explosive device left behind by Israeli forces in the city of Khan Younis detonated, Nasser Hospital said.
Killings also continue in the occupied West Bank, officials said.
Health authorities said Israeli forces shot and killed Abdel Rahman Darousha during a raid on al-Fala refugee camp near the city of Tuba, and he later died of his injuries in hospital.
Israeli prisoners of war
Meanwhile, Hamas announced that it had recovered the body of Hadar Goldin, an Israeli officer who was captured and reported killed during an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip in 2014.
Goldin is one of five remaining prisoners who were scheduled to be returned to Israel under the terms of the cease-fire agreement.
Hamas said the bodies of six Palestinians were also recovered from the scene.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azizm, reporting from Deir Bala in central Gaza, said Goldin’s body was recovered from the city of Rafah, which has been under Israeli control for more than a year.
“We have received reports that Israeli prisoners have been rescued from tunnels that the Israeli military has inspected numerous times over the past year,” he said.
“What is very controversial here is that even though the Israeli military announced that Goldin was killed in action, his body has not been returned to this day. However, reports from the Qassam Brigades now suggest that six of the security personnel who were guarding his body from captivity were found killed at the same scene, raising serious concerns that the deaths occurred in an Israeli military raid in the area,” he added.
This comes amid calls by the World Health Organization (WHO) to reopen the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt for emergency medical evacuations.
According to the WHO, around 4,000 Palestinian patients have left Gaza via Rafah for treatment in Egypt and other countries, and another 16,500 patients are still waiting for treatment abroad.
“The Rafah crossing is an important exit point for medical evacuations and an important entry point for medical supplies into Gaza. Egypt remains one of the main destinations for patients requiring emergency treatment,” the agency wrote in a social media post.
Attacks by military and settlers intensify
Separately, military raids and attacks on settlers continued in the occupied West Bank, as part of the Israeli government’s expansion of illegal settlements across the territory, apparently with the aim of displacing Palestinians from their land.
Israeli settlers on Saturday attacked a group of Palestinian villagers, activists and journalists who had gathered to harvest olives in the town of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli anti-apartheid activist who was helping Palestinians harvest olives, told Al Jazeera how a group of dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked him with clubs.
Pollack told Al Jazeera that settlers came down the hill and “started throwing huge stones at us, so we had to run away.”
He said the assault left more than a dozen people with injuries requiring medical treatment, including a journalist who was beaten by settlers and a 70-year-old activist who suffered a broken cheekbone and jaw.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that five journalists were injured in the assault: Ranin Sawafteh, Mohammed al-Atrash, Louai Saeed, Nasser Ishtayyeh and Nael Bouaiter.
The syndicate denounced the attack as a “war crime with intent to kill.”
Reuters confirmed that those injured in the attack included a journalist and two employees of the bank’s security advisers.
Israeli settlers have been conducting near-daily attacks on Palestinian farmers and their lands in the occupied West Bank this year during the olive harvest, targeting one of the most important symbols of Palestinian tradition and livelihood.
Harvesting takes place amid waves of settler violence. The United Nations says at least 126 attacks have been recorded in 70 towns and villages since September, with more than 4,000 olive trees and saplings destroyed or uprooted.
On Saturday, Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Raba, southeast of Jenin, with the protection of armed Israeli soldiers who entered the village at the same time as the attack, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Soldiers also arrested a 13-year-old boy for assault on the street in the town of Yabad, near Jenin, and a young man in the town of al-Mazrah ash Sharqiya, near Ramallah.
Separately, in al-Ram, north of occupied East Jerusalem, a Palestinian man was shot in the leg near the Israeli separation wall and taken to a medical facility in Ramallah, Wafa news agency reported.
Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians suffered from tear gas inhalation after Israeli forces fired gas canisters at worshipers performing evening prayers at the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Mosque in Salem, a village east of Nablus.
