Latest hostage remains returned from Gaza identified as Israeli man

Israel said on Saturday that the remains of a hostage returned from Gaza the previous night belong to an Israeli man who died while fighting Hamas in the militants’ October 7 2023 attack that started the war.

The identification marked another step forward for the tenuous, US-brokered ceasefire. The body was identified as that of Lior Rudaeff, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Mr Rudaeff was born in Argentina and moved to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, a farming community in southern Israel, as a child.

He volunteered for more than 40 years as an ambulance driver and was a member of the community’s emergency response team.

The forum said he was killed in the Hamas-led attack and that his body was taken to Gaza.

Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 23 hostages, including Mr Rudaeff’s body, with five still remaining in Gaza.

As part of the deal, Israel has returned the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli hostage.

Hospital officials in Gaza said on Saturday they have received the bodies of another 15 Palestinians returned from Israel under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

The bodies arrived on Saturday at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the officials said.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel is supposed to allow substantially more aid into Gaza.

However, relief efforts under the pact still fall well short of what is needed in Gaza, according to Farhan Haqq, deputy spokesperson for the United Nations.

More than 200,000 metric tons in aid is positioned to move into Gaza, but only 37,000 tons, mostly food, have been admitted, he said.

The 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that the death toll in the territory has climbed to 69,169, with another 170,685 wounded since Hamas’s 2023 attack into Israel. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.

In the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, 11 people were injured in an attack by Israeli settlers, the latest as settler violence reaches new highs during this year’s olive harvest.

The UN humanitarian office has said 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 2006. There were over 260 attacks, or an average of eight incidents per day, the office said.

Palestinian paramedics said that journalists, volunteers and farmers were among those injured in the attack on the central town of Beita. A Palestinian photographer for Reuters was among the injured.

The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear and Israel’s military did not respond to a request for comment.

A video of the aftermath circulating in Palestinian media shows a man holding a camera, blood trickling down his face and chest. It then showed the inside of a hospital, where a man in a journalist’s vest marked “Press” and others with bandages on their heads were lying on the beds.

With settler violence surging in the territory, volunteers, activists and journalists have joined this year’s olive harvest in an attempt to help Palestinian farmers safely reach and return from their fields.

The groups have repeatedly come under attack over the last few weeks.

Published: 08/11/2025 by Radio NewsHub