Israel, Hamas trade blame over truce violations, Rafah border reopening eyed but no date set

Highlights:

• Israel says Rafah crossing to open for movement of people but not aid, no date set yet
• Dispute over handover of hostage bodies poses risk to ceasefire deal
• Hamas demands excavation equipment to locate remains
• UN says massive uptick in aid needed for Gaza with famine conditions in parts of territory
• Israel returns 30 more Palestinian bodies

Israel said on Thursday (16 October) it was preparing for the reopening of Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt to let Palestinians in and out, but set no date as it traded blame with Hamas over violations of a US-mediated ceasefire.

A row over the return of bodies of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza retains the potential to upend the truce along with other major planks of the plan yet to be resolved, including disarmament of militants and Gaza's future governance.

Government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Thursday that Israel remained committed to the agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, demanding Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over.

The Islamist faction has handed over 10 bodies but Israel said one of them was not that of a hostage. The militant group has said that it has handed over all bodies it could recover.

The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, which was reduced to vast tracts of rubble by the war, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the Israel-blockaded Palestinian enclave.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by having killed at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.

"The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground," he said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusations. It has previously said that some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops "opened fire to remove the threat".

Israel has said the next phase of the 20-point plan to end the war engineered by US President Donald Trump's administration calls for Hamas to relinquish its weapons and cede power, which it has so far refused to do.

Hamas has instead launched a security crackdown in urban areas vacated by Israeli forces, parading its power through public executions and clashes with local armed clans.

Twenty remaining living hostages were freed on Monday in exchange for thousands of Palestinians jailed in Israel.

Later on Thursday, the Gaza health ministry said Israel had released 30 bodies of Palestinians killed during the conflict, taking the total of bodies it has received since Monday to 120.

Longer-term elements of Trump's plan, including the make-up of an international "stabilisation force" for the small, densely populated territory and moves towards creating a Palestinian state - rejected by Israel - have yet to be hashed out.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Thursday the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) would work with international institutions and partners to address Gaza's security, logistical, financial and governance challenges.

An upcoming conference in Egypt on Gaza's reconstruction would need to clarify how donor funds are organised, who would receive them and how they would be disbursed, he told reporters.

Hamas ejected the PA from Gaza in a brief civil war in 2007.

Massive increase in aid needed

In a statement on Thursday, Israel's military aid agency COGAT said coordination was under way with Egypt to decide a date for reopening the Rafah crossing for movement of people after completing the necessary preparations.

COGAT said the Rafah crossing would not open for aid as this was not stipulated by the truce deal at any stage, rather all humanitarian goods bound for Gaza would pass through Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom after undergoing security inspections.

With famine conditions present in parts of Gaza, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that thousands of aid vehicles would now have to enter Gaza weekly to ease the crisis.

Aid trucks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday and Israel said 600 had been approved to go in under the truce pact. Fletcher called that a "good base" but nowhere near enough, with medical care also scarce and most of the 2.2 million population homeless.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza media office, said the quantities of aid that had entered Gaza since the fighting subsided were a "drop in the ocean" of what is needed.

"The region urgently requires a large, continuous, and organised inflow of aid, fuel, cooking gas, and relief and medical supplies," he told Reuters.

Much of the heavily urbanised coastal enclave has been rendered a wasteland by Israeli bombardments and airstrikes that have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

The war was triggered by Hamas' 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.