Israel awaiting remains from Gaza as soldiers kill 4 Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli fire killed two Palestinians in Gaza and two suspected Palestinian attackers in the West Bank on Tuesday as Israel's government prepared to receive some of the last hostage remains from militants in Gaza.

The return is a key part of a ceasefire between the militant group and Israel’s government. In a statement Tuesday, Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said it was expecting to receive the remains from the Red Cross, which later would be taken to forensics testing to confirm that they were the remains of hostages. It was not immediately clear if they had already been transferred to the Red Cross.

The remains are expected to be of the final two hostages taken by Palestinian militants in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

The Tuesday killings were the latest burst of violence in the Palestinian territories, which has fueled concerns that unrest could spill over and undermine the fragile truce in Gaza.

Palestinians killed in Gaza

An Israeli drone strike killed a journalist in southern Gaza on Tuesday, officials at Nasser Hospital, which received the body, said.

The journalist, Mohamed Wadi, who used to film through a drone, was killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, the hospital said. The conflict in Gaza has had a heavy toll on Palestinian journalists working on the front lines.

Also Tuesday, a man in Gaza was fatally shot near the eastern side of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that more than 350 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since a ceasefire on Oct. 11 stopped the Israel-Hamas war. Israel's military did not immediately comment on either deaths, but has said that killings have often been in response to firing at their forces by militants.

Both Hamas and Israel have accused the other of breaking the terms of the ceasefire.

Violence flares in the West Bank

At the same time, Israel’s military has pushed forward its operations in the occupied West Bank.

On Tuesday morning, the military said troops shot and killed a suspect who stabbed two soldiers as they were confronting him near Ateret, an Israeli settlement north of Ramallah in central West Bank. It said the incident was under review.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces killed an 18-year-old Palestinian north of Ramallah, but it wasn't immediately clear if it was the same incident.

Israel's Mada rescue service said two soldiers were lightly wounded. In the southern West Bank, the army said it fatally shot a Palestinian who had earlier carried out a car-ramming attack that wounded a soldier. The army said the man attempted to flee as they tried to arrest him near the city of Hebron “while endangering the soldiers” and he was shot dead. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the suspect as a 17-year-old resident of Hebron.

In a statement late Monday, Hamas celebrated the ramming attack near Hebron, saying that it came “in the context of the legitimate response of our people” to Israel’s ongoing raids in the West Bank. The militant group didn’t claim the attack.

The Israeli army has stepped up its activities in the West Bank since Hamas' 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Israel says the offensive is aimed at rooting out militants. But Palestinians say scores of stone throwers, protesters and uninvolved civilians have been killed.

In recent weeks, Israeli settlers have stepped up attacks on Palestinian civilians. Palestinian assailants killed an Israeli man in a stabbing and car ramming attack last month.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished the home of Abdul Karim Sanoubar, a suspected Palestinian militant currently in detention who has been accused by Israel of planting bombs on buses in central Israel last February. Troops evacuated 13 homes around the building in the city of Nablus and a plume of smoke billowed out after the home was destroyed.

Also Tuesday, Israel’s military launched another round of strikes on southern Lebanon, which has become an almost daily occurrence as Israel accuses the militant group Hezbollah of failing to disarm following a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last year that halted two months of war.

The war began with the 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were taken hostage. Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.

Gaza's Health Ministry says the Palestinian toll has topped 70,100. The ministry operates under the Hamas-run government. It is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Janetsky from Jerusalem.