Israel hands over bodies of 45 Palestinians after Hamas returns the remains of 3 soldiers

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel handed over the bodies of 45 Palestinians on Monday, the Red Cross said, a day after militants returned the remains of three hostages. Israeli officials identified the three as soldiers who were killed in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.

The exchange marked another step forward for the tenuous, U.S.-brokered ceasefire intended to end the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas.

Since the truce took effect on Oct. 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 20 hostages, with eight now remaining in Gaza.

For each Israeli hostage returned, Israel has been releasing the remains of 15 Palestinians. With Monday's return, the bodies of 270 Palestinians have been handed back since the start of the ceasefire.

The Red Cross said it had facilitated the transfer of 45 Palestinian bodies to Gaza on Monday morning. Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson at the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that Nasser Hospital received the bodies around noon.

Only 78 of the bodies returned so far have been identified, the ministry said. Forensic work is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits in Gaza, it added. The ministry posts photos of the remains online, in the hope that families will recognize them.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's office identified the three hostages, whose bodies were returned to Israel on Sunday night, as Capt. Omer Neutra, an American-Israeli, Staff Sgt. Oz Daniel and Col. Assaf Hamami. A Hamas statement earlier said their remains were found on Sunday in a tunnel in southern Gaza.

Neutra was 21 when Hamas militants abducted his tank crew during the 2023 attack. In December 2024, the military announced Neutra had been killed in the attack.

Daniel, 19, was part of the tank crew and was taken into Gaza. Nimrod Cohen, who was also in the tank, was released alive earlier, as was the body of one of the other crew members.

“Our hearts are shattered, yet at last we can begin the process of bringing Omer to his final resting place in the land he loved and defended," Neutra's mother, Orna, told reporters Monday in Tel Aviv.

She and husband Ronen thanked Israeli troops, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. negotiators, who played a leading role in brokering the ceasefire. But they did not thank Netanyahu, who many families of hostages blame for prolonging the conflict and endangering captives.

“The IDF soldiers and the U.S. administration fought for his life,” Ronen Neutra said.

Hamami, commander of Israel’s southern brigade in the Gaza division, was killed during the 2023 attack while fighting to defend Kibbutz Nirim and his body was taken into the Palestinian territory.

Militants have released one to three bodies every few days. Israel has pushed to speed up the returns and in certain cases has said the remains were not those of hostages. Hamas has said the work is complicated by widespread devastation.

A political scandal continued to rock Israel involving the military's former legal chief, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to leaking a video of Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee and resigned from office.

Far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, said Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested Sunday night. At a court hearing Monday, the judge extended her detention until Wednesday, according to a copy of the decision. It said she is being held on suspicion of offenses including fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice. The investigation continues while she is held in a women’s prison in central Israel.

Police conducted a frantic search for Tomer-Yerushalmi on Sunday after her family raised concerns about her safety and police found her abandoned car near the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. Police said she was found soon after the search began.

Israeli media reported that former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight and his detention was also extended.

The Palestinian detainee who was the subject of sexual abuse in the video leaked by Tomer-Yerushalmi last year was released and returned to Gaza on Oct. 13, according to documentation from the military prosecutor's office obtained by the AP.

Two Palestinians, one of them a teenager, were killed by Israeli gunfire Sunday night in separate incidents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah.

Jamil Hanani, 17, was killed in the town of Beit Furik, the ministry said Monday. Israel’s military said soldiers opened fire at Palestinians hurling rocks, hitting one person. Hanani’s death extends a surge in military killings of Palestinian youth in the West Bank during an upswing in violence since the start of the war.

Also Sunday, Ahmed Al-Atrash, 32, was fatally shot by an Israeli settler at an entrance to the city of Hebron, the ministry said. Israel’s military referred the AP to the police, who did not immediately comment. Hundreds of hard-line settlers live in fortified enclaves under military protection in the city of more than 200,000 Palestinians.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will be in Jordan on Monday, with plans to visit a warehouse where British aid remains stuck waiting to enter Gaza.

Ahead of the visit, Cooper said that “humanitarian support is desperately needed and the people of Gaza cannot afford to wait.”

“Following the U.S.-led peace process and the plans for a substantial increase in aid for Gaza, we need an increase in crossings, an acceleration in lifting of restrictions and more agencies able to go in with aid,” Cooper said.

Cooper also announced that Britain will provide an extra 6 million pounds ($7.9 million) of humanitarian support for Gaza, provided by the U.N. Population Fund.

Also Monday, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced that a campaign to vaccinate some 40,000 Palestinian children under 3 years old against preventable diseases like measles, polio and meningitis will kick off next week. It will focus on children who missed routine vaccinations or received only partial doses due to the war, Dr. Nedal Ghoneim, the Health Ministry’s public health manager, told the AP.

The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel two years ago killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 68,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.

Israel, which has denied accusations by a U.N. commission of inquiry and others of committing genocide in Gaza, has disputed the ministry’s figures without providing a contradicting toll.

Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Renata Brito in Jerusalem; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel; Jill Lawless in London and Aamer Madhani in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Palestinian women mourn over the body of Jamil Hanani, 17, who, according to health authorities, was killed after being shot in the chest during an Israeli raid, at his funeral in the West Bank village of Beit Furik, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Bodies of unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel as part of the ceasefire deal are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Red Cross vehicles carrying the bodies of three people believed to be deceased hostages handed over by Hamas make their way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Red Cross vehicles carrying the bodies of three people believed to be deceased hostages handed over by Hamas make their way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by then-President Nicolás Maduro before the United States captured him in an audacious military raid this month.

Less than two weeks after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges, Trump will host the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having already dismissed her credibility to run Venezuela and raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in the country.

“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump told Reuters in an interview about Machado. “I’ve seen her on television. I think we’re just going to talk basics.”

The meeting comes as Trump and his top advisers have signaled their willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president and along with others in the deposed leader's inner circle remain in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.

Rodríguez herself has adopted a less strident position toward Trump and his “America First” policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro — a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela released several Americans this week.

Trump, a Republican, said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.

“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump told reporters. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”

In endorsing Rodríguez, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela. She had sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key advisers like Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the American right wing in a political gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government. She also intends to have a meeting in the Senate on Thursday afternoon.

Despite her alliance with Republicans, Trump was quick to snub her following Maduro’s capture. Just hours afterward, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump coveted. She has since thanked Trump and offered to share the prize with him, a move that has been rejected by the Nobel Institute.

Machado’s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.

The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.

A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.

Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.

Janetsky reported from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - U.S. President George Bush, right, meets with Maria Corina Machado, executive director of Sumate, a non-governmental organization that defends Venezuelan citizens' political rights, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, May 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)