Israel says another set of remains of a hostage has been turned over in Gaza

JERUSALEM AP The Red Cross transferred the remains of a hostage to Israeli troops in Gaza the prime minister s office disclosed Friday hours after hundreds of mourners flocked to the funeral of a soldier whose body was turned over this week by Palestinian militants Before Friday s handover Hamas had returned the bodies of hostages since the start of the current ceasefire If the remains in the latest handover are authenticated to be those of an additional hostage that would leave five others still in Gaza The ceasefire which began Oct is aimed at winding down the deadliest and majority of destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Palestinian militant group As part of the ceasefire Israel has disclosed the bodies of Palestinians the Red Cross and Gaza s Wellbeing Ministry revealed Only of them have been identified DNA labs are not allowed in Gaza according to the ministry which makes the identification more hard Israeli-American soldier is buried Hundreds of mourners attended the military funeral of an Israeli-American soldier whose body was in the past few days returned to the country as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire Capt Omer Neutra was when Hamas militants killed him and abducted his body to Gaza in the Oct attack that began the war His remains were circulated to Israel on Sunday night along with those of two other soldiers killed during the attack Since that day the old world stopped turned upside down We became broken clinging to your memory your smile your voice reported his father Ronen Neutra Currently we certainly have a place to be with you a place to talk to you a place to love you even when you re no longer here Neutra was also eulogized by Adm Brad Cooper commander of U S Central Command and Israel s President Isaac Herzog He is the son of two nations He embodied the best of both the United States and Israel Uniquely he has firmly cemented his place in history as the hero of two countries revealed Cooper Orna Neutra spoke last and addressed her son s coffin My beloved she reported her voice quivering her eyes shaded by dark sunglasses We are all left with the vast space between who you were to us and to the world in your life and what you were yet to become And with the mission to fill that gap with the light and goodness that you are Omer Neutra was born and raised on Long Island New York and moved to Israel to enlist in the military as a volunteer After he was abducted his parents made specific trips to Washington to lobby for their son appeared regularly at protests in the U S and Israel and addressed the Republican National Convention last year For more than a year following the Oct attack they deduced Omer was still alive After months they received word from the military that intelligence indicated he had been killed during the attack Three Palestinian teenagers killed in West Bank Meanwhile in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Palestinian administrators say Israeli troops have shot killed and confiscated the bodies of three Palestinian teenagers since Wednesday No soldiers were injured in the exchanges the military disclosed Two were killed Thursday night north of Jerusalem explained the military claiming the teens had been throwing explosives toward a major highway In a comment on social media the military circulated grainy and undated footage showing the apparent ambush In the video one of two figures standing near a wall appears to hurl something over it Hastily what appear to be bullets begin to pelt the ground sending the two scrambling One falls down The Palestinian Healthcare Ministry identified the teenagers as Muhammad Atem and Muhammad Qasem both years old and reported Israel was holding their bodies On Wednesday forces shot killed and confiscated the body of Murad Abu Seifen near the West Bank city of Jenin Wednesday The military mentioned without providing evidence that troops had shot him after he threw an explosive at them Defense for Children International-Palestine a local rights organization that investigates and documents violence against Palestinian children disclosed Abu Seifen s family heard from Palestinian functionaries early Thursday that he had been killed DCIP reported it had no information about the number of bullet wounds on Abu Seifen s body and had no idea where the body was The organization says Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least Palestinian children since June Six of the bodies have since been issued to their families while Palestinian children s bodies remain withheld Upswing in West Bank violence The shootings are the latest in a surge of military killings of Palestinian children in the West Bank that has accompanied a general upswing in violence in the territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war The U N s humanitarian office declared Thursday that Palestinian children under the age of had been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the start of Several were killed during Israeli military raids in dense neighborhoods others by sniper fire in peaceful areas The killings have risen as the Israeli military has stepped up operations in the occupied West Bank since the war s onset Settler violence has also surged not long ago with the olive harvest season as Palestinian farmers face threats from violent Israeli settlers roaming the groves The U N s humanitarian office reported Thursday that in October it documented the highest monthly number of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank since the office began keeping track in There were over attacks or an average of eight incidents per day the office announced Israel captured the West Bank along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the Mideast war The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state Source