The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said yesterday, as Israeli air strikes killed 55 people, according to local medics.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israeli-backed aid group, said yesterday it was unable to distribute assistance to Palestinian civilians, blaming threats by Hamas, which Gaza’s dominant group denied.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
The military said it had killed As’ad Abu Sharaiya, who served as the head of the Mujahideen, but there was no confirmation from the group.
Israel has in recent weeks expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
Medics in Gaza said 55 people in total were killed in Israeli air strikes across the enclave.
At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by air strikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra in the northern Gaza Strip, local health authorities said.
More than one missile landed in the area. The target seemed to have been a multi-floor residential building, but the explosion damaged several other houses nearby, according to witnesses and media.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. It later warned people to evacuate the nearby district of Jabaliya, saying it was going to strike there after rockets were launched by fighters in the vicinity.
The Palestinian health ministry said that Gaza’s hospitals only had fuel for three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.
There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that co-ordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had uncovered ‘an underground tunnel route, including a command and control centre from which senior Hamas commanders’ operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.
It added that it had located several bodies of fighters whose identities were ‘under examination’.
The Israeli government and military said last month it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief, but Hamas did not confirm his death.
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the GHF said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticised by humanitarian organisations for alleged lack of neutrality, said it was unable to distribute any humanitarian aid yesterday because Hamas had issued ‘direct threats; against its operations.
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