Live, Middle East wars: Israel announces it has recovered "from the heart of Syria" the body of a soldier killed in Lebanon in 1982

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a "special operation" conducted by the Mossad, the foreign intelligence service, and the army had led to the repatriation of the body of Sergeant Zvi Feldman, an Israeli soldier killed during the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon in June 1982.

A separate statement from the Mossad and the Israeli army said the body was "located in the heart of Syria and repatriated to Israel (…). The return [of the body] of Sergeant Feldman was made possible by a complex and clandestine operation, made possible by precise intelligence and the use of operational capabilities demonstrating ingenuity and courage," they added. No information was provided on the date of this operation.

Zvi Feldman was formally identified through genetic testing and his family has been notified, the military said.

"Eight people, including four children aged between two and five and two women," were killed in an Israeli airstrike on tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defense force in the Palestinian enclave, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Israeli army has not yet commented on the incident.

Footage filmed by AFP shows rescuers, in the dark, evacuating bodies by ambulance, one in a white plastic bag, the other in a blanket, as well as an injured baby.

According to Mr. Bassal, Israeli fighter jets targeted three tents sheltering dozens of displaced people in Khan Younis on Saturday night and destroyed five houses in the east of Gaza City with explosives. They also fired artillery at the town of Abassa, east of Khan Younis, without any injuries being reported.

After Hamas's military wing released a new video earlier Saturday of two Israeli hostages being held in the Gaza Strip , the Hostage Families Forum, the largest association of hostage relatives in Israel, confirmed the identities of the two men in the video. They are Yosef-Haim Ohana, 24, and Elkana Bohbot, 36, who were kidnapped in the Hamas terror attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. Their families have authorized the media's publication of the video.

The two men are filmed in a small, confined space: Yossef-Haïm Ohana, with his shaved head and tattooed arm, sits cross-legged and speaks by waving his hands, while Elkana Bohbot, visibly weakened and lying under a blanket, remains silent.

Speaking under duress, like all the hostages appearing in the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades videos, Yossef-Haim Ohana explains that Elkana Bohbot is in poor physical and mental health, and calls on Israeli leaders to end the war in the Gaza Strip.

"That they are still there is a shame," the Bohbot family said in a statement, adding: "Elkana and Yosef are crying out for help. While the entire people of Israel hear their pleas, a handful of decision-makers refuse to listen."

"Fifteen deaths as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since dawn," a civil defense official in Gaza, Mohammed Al-Moughayir, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday. The Israeli army, which resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave on March 18 after a two-month truce, has not commented on the announcement at this stage.

The deadliest attack – five dead, according to Mughayir – occurred on a tent housing displaced people in Gaza City, in the northern Palestinian territory. AFP footage from the scene showed people paying their respects in front of five white shrouds of varying sizes.

Among the ten other victims counted on Saturday, Mr. Mughayir mentioned four people killed in a bombing in Deir Al-Balah (Center), a child killed by a shot from Israeli naval forces on the coast of Rafah (South), and another person who was killed in an attack on a solidarity kitchen in Gaza City.

Abdel Kareem Hana / AP

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has reached a peak with Israel's blockade of aid deliveries since March 2, could worsen further if the Jewish state implements the plan approved by its security cabinet during the week of May 5. On the military front, the plan involves launching a major offensive to seize the entire enclave and then occupying it for an indefinite period. On the humanitarian front, the objective is to take control of aid distribution, which the government believes is being diverted by Hamas, by bypassing the mechanisms established by the international community, and, first and foremost, the United Nations.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement released a video on Saturday of two Israeli hostages alive in Gaza.

Israeli media identified the two men in the video, which lasts just over three minutes, as Yosef-Haim Ohana, 24, and Elkana Bohbot, 36, who were kidnapped in the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. Agence France-Presse was unable to determine the date of the recording.

The two men are filmed in a confined space, one sitting cross-legged with a shaved head; the other lying under a blanket, visibly weakened and remaining silent. Speaking under duress, like all the hostages appearing in the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades videos, the man with the shaved head explains that his companion is in a very difficult physical and mental state and calls on Israeli leaders to end the war in Gaza.

Yossef-Haim Ohana and Elkana Bohbot had already appeared in videos released by Hamas since their kidnapping.

During the October 7 attack, 251 people were kidnapped. Fifty-eight hostages are still being held in Gaza, 24 of whom are still alive, according to the Israeli military. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.

Germany's new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, called on Saturday for "serious talks with a view to a ceasefire" in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation "is now unbearable ." It is "imperative to begin" these negotiations "with the aim of freeing all hostages and ensuring supplies for the population of Gaza," he said in Berlin, according to comments reported by his ministry.

While reaffirming Berlin's unwavering support for Israel, whose security is part of the "German raison d'état" due to its responsibility in the Holocaust, Mr. Wadephul announced that he would "inquire about the strategic objective of the fighting, which has intensified since March." He is due to meet with his counterpart, Gideon Saar, and is also expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

The Israeli army resumed its offensive in the territory on March 18, ending a two-month truce with Hamas.

On Tuesday, the new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, expressed his "considerable concern" about the situation in Gaza and demanded that Israel "respect its humanitarian obligations there." He then announced that Mr. Wadephul would travel to Israel at the end of the week, "at [his] request."

The Gaza Strip, almost all of whose 2.4 million inhabitants have already been displaced since the start of the war launched by Israel in retaliation for the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, has been under a tight blockade since March 2 and is in the grip of a serious humanitarian crisis.

"Five [dead] and wounded in an [Israeli] airstrike on a tent in the Sabra neighborhood" of Gaza City, Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesman for the civil defense in Gaza, told Agence France-Presse. According to Omar Abu Al-Kass, who identified himself as the children's maternal grandfather, the victims were a couple and their three children, killed in their sleep.

The Israeli army, which resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after a two-month truce, has not commented at this stage.

Since the Israeli reprisals launched after the October 7 attacks, 52,787 people have died in the Palestinian enclave, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, deemed reliable by the United Nations.

Thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem on Friday for a peace conference. The event, held at the International Convention Center, was organized by a coalition of about 60 local organizations working for a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On this occasion, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al-Kidwa presented their peace plan, first unveiled last year.

"Only a two-state solution can bring about radical change for our country and the entire region," said Olmert, the centrist predecessor of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We must end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Gaza is Palestinian (...) and must be part of a Palestinian state," he argued.

He called for the establishment of an "internal security force" under the Palestinian Authority, with "objective powers (...) to rebuild the Gaza Strip without the participation" of Hamas.

Speaking via videoconference from the occupied West Bank, Nasser Al-Kidwa, nephew of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, confirmed that their peace proposal was based on a two-state solution, including an exchange of 4.4 percent of territory between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

According to the plan unveiled last year, Israel would annex major Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including areas around Jerusalem. In return, an equivalent amount of Israeli territory would be ceded to a future Palestinian state, they said. Their vision of a two-state solution is based on Israel's June 4, 1967, borders, before the occupation of the West Bank.

The Olmert-Kidwa plan also advocates shared sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem, with a trusteeship that would include Israel and a Palestinian state.