KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel handed over the bodies of 15 Palestinians on Wednesday, a day after Hamas returned the remains of an Israeli hostage. This is the latest exchange as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached last month, whose first phase is winding down even as violence continues in Palestinian territories.
The remains of two hostages, one Israeli and a Thai national who were abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel that ignited the war, are still to be returned.
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A makeshift tent camp for displaced Palestinians is seen through destruction in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians gather outside a tent at a temporary camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Red Cross convoy carrying the remains of a person believed to be a deceased hostage handed over by Gaza militants makes its way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Red Cross convoy carrying the remains of a person believed to be a deceased hostage handed over by Gaza militants makes its way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Hamas said it's committed to handing them over even though the recovery is made difficult by widespread destruction in Gaza, while Israel has accused the militants of stalling after the last living hostages were released on Oct. 13 during the most urgent phase of the ceasefire.
Turkish, Qatari and Egyptian mediators met in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire.
That is expected to include deploying an armed International Stabilization Force, tasked with ensuring the disarmament of Hamas, a key demand of Israel, and developing an international body to govern Gaza and oversee reconstruction.
But major questions hang over nearly every part of the plan and the time frame for implementation of the fragile ceasefire that has held despite accusations of violations by both sides.
Separately, Israel’s military said Wednesday that it conducted airstrikes and a “broad counterterrorism operation” in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It said the operation followed the killing of “three terrorists who took part in terror attacks against IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians.”
According to the ceasefire, Israel has agreed to return 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage recovered. So far, 345 bodies have been returned, said the Gaza Health Ministry. It is unclear if they were people killed in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack, Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli custody or bodies taken from Gaza by Israeli troops during the war.
Meanwhile, Israel mourned the latest hostage to be returned by the Palestinian militants, Dror Or. Israel’s military said Or and his wife, Yonat Or, were killed by militants who overran their community of Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023.
Before they were killed, the couple evacuated two of their children, Alma and Noam, from their burning house through a window, said the Hostages Families Forum. The children were abducted by the militants and released in a hostage deal in November 2023.
The forum remembered Or as a devoted father and talented cheesemaker who spent years working at the Be’eri dairy, eventually managing it.
In total, Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza in their attack.
Israeli troops opened fire Wednesday on a group of people in central Gaza, killing a Palestinian man and wounding at least two others, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the casualties.
Israel’s military said it did not have enough information about the incident to comment.
Also Wednesday, the military said its troops targeted a group of six militants in the southern city of Rafah, killing one. The military statement said that the militants had “most likely emerged from the underground terror infrastructure in the area.” Troops then searched a nearby building, killing three more and apprehending two, it said.
Later on Wednesday, the military said troops had killed two “terrorists” – one a member of Islamic Jihad – who had approached the IDF in two separate incidents in southern Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 69,775 Palestinians have been killed — 345 Palestinians since the ceasefire — and 170,863 injured in Israel’s offensive in Gaza. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
An Israeli military operation took place on Wednesday in the governorate of Tubas in the West Bank.
Gov. Ahmad Al-Asaad said the operation involved Apache helicopters and military vehicles, saying Tubas was essentially “cut off” by Israeli troops.
“This military operation is a prelude to annexation, and since the early hours of the morning, we have activated the central emergency committee to respond to the citizens’ distress call in the Tubas Governorate,” he said.
The IDF said its operation — which included the Air Force striking “to isolate and contain the area” — was a response to “attempts to establish terrorist strongholds and construction of terror infrastructures in the area.”
Last week, Israel’s prime minister met with top security officials to discuss a rising tide of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, which Israel captured alongside Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and Palestinians see as central to a future state.
A few days earlier, Palestinian attackers stabbed an Israeli to death and wounded three more before being shot down by troops in the latest violence to rock the occupied territory.
Officials have warned that the unrest could spill over and undermine the fragile truce in Gaza.
Turkey’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met in Cairo on Tuesday with Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Hasan Reshat to discuss advancing to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, a Turkish security official said.
The talks also centered on intensifying joint efforts with the United States to strengthen the truce, according to the official who requested anonymity in line with Turkish regulations.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation with a long experience in U.N. peacekeeping missions, is among the countries the U.S. has discussed the ISF plan with, in addition to Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar.
On Tuesday, Gen. Agus Subianto, Chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces, said they’re “in the selection phase for the peacekeeping force."
On Thursday, Pope Leo XIV is expected to take his first foreign trip, traveling first to various sites in Turkey and then to Beirut, Lebanon. Israel struck Lebanon’s capital on Sunday, killing Hezbollah’s chief of staff Haytham Tabtabai and warning the Iran-backed militant group not to rearm and rebuild.
Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Magdy reported from Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press video journalist Jalal Bwaitel in Tubas West Bank, and AP writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia contributed to this report.
A makeshift tent camp for displaced Palestinians is seen through destruction in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians gather outside a tent at a temporary camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Israeli soldiers are seen during an army raid in the West Bank town of Tubas, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Red Cross convoy carrying the remains of a person believed to be a deceased hostage handed over by Gaza militants makes its way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Red Cross convoy carrying the remains of a person believed to be a deceased hostage handed over by Gaza militants makes its way toward the border crossing with Israel, to be transferred to Israeli authorities, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
