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Israeli army says body of hostage recovered from Gaza

Israel's army said on Saturday its troops recovered the body of a hostage abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack and later murdered in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The recovery of Elad Katzir's body brings to 12 the number of bodies of hostages which the army says it has brought home from Gaza during the war.

But it gave no comfort to his sister, who blamed Israeli authorities for his death.

A portrait of Elad Katzir featured in a protest on March 26, 2024 by relatives and supporters of the hostages held by militants in Gaza

Gaza's largest hospital 'an empty shell with human graves': WHO

The World Health Organization said on Saturday that Gaza's largest hospital had been reduced to ashes by Israel's latest siege, leaving an "empty shell" with many bodies.

WHO staff who gained access on Friday to the devastated facility described horrifying scenes of bodies only partially buried, with their limbs sticking out, and the stench of decomposing corpses.

The dialysis unit at Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital was destroyed in the Israeli siege

Israeli army says body of hostage recovered from Gaza

Israel's army said on Saturday its troops recovered the body of a hostage abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack and later murdered in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The recovery of Elad Katzir's body brings to 12 the number of hostages which the army says it has brought home from Gaza during the war.

But it gave no comfort to his sister, who blamed Israeli authorities for his death.

A portrait of Elad Katzir featured in a protest on March 26, 2024 by relatives and supporters of the hostages held by militants in Gaza

Moroccan protesters denounce 'massacres' in Gaza

Thousands of people protested in Morocco's commercial capital Casablanca late on Friday against "massacres" in the Gaza Strip and against the country's normalisation of ties with Israel.

The protest -- the latest large-scale rally of its kind in Morocco -- was called by the banned but tolerated Islamist group Al Adl Wal Ihssane.

The group also organised similar gatherings in the capital Rabat and the port of Tangier.

Protesters demonstrate in solidarity with Palestinians

US says truce talks on, after Gaza aid worker death outcry

American and Israeli negotiators are expected in Cairo over the weekend for a renewed push to reach a ceasefire-hostage deal in a war that reaches the half-year mark on Sunday.

The attempt comes after Israel made a rare admission of wrongdoing during its war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The military said it was firing two officers for the killing of seven aid workers -- most of them Westerners -- in the territory where humanitarians say famine is imminent.

Israel's admission, however, did not quell calls for an independent probe.

Six months of bloodshed have left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins -- a boy clears rubble in Rafah, where around 1.5 million people are sheltering

Biden's patience for Israel thins - enough to change US policy?

President Joe Biden has stood firmly by Israel amid months of mounting domestic and international outcry over the humanitarian toll in Gaza, but the killing of seven aid workers in an Israeli strike seems to have brought him the closest yet to a breaking point.

"Obviously the World Central Kitchen fiasco has turned the political pressure up," James Ryan of the Middle East Research and Information Project told AFP, referring to the US-based aid group employing the seven workers.

After months of calls by activists, Biden opened the door to conditioning US aid for Israel after seven aid workers were killed

Palestinian Muslims mark sad and tense 'holiest Ramadan night' in Jerusalem

Palestinian Muslims marked a tense and sombre last Friday of Ramadan in Jerusalem, with minor scuffles between worshippers and Israeli police controlling the entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

Some 120,000 people descended on the shrine, which dominates the Old City, officials said, with grand mufti Muhammad Ahmad Hussein urging the faithful to brave the heavy police presence because of the war in Gaza.

Israeli police push back Palestinians close to the entrance of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque

UN chief 'deeply troubled' by reports Israel using AI to identify Gaza targets

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed serious concern over reports that Israel was using artificial intelligence to identify targets in Gaza, resulting in many civilian deaths.

According to a report in independent Israeli-Palestinian magazine +972, Israel has used AI to identify targets in Gaza -- in some cases with as little as 20 seconds of human oversight.

Large swathes of Gaza have been ravaged by the latest war

Biden says Israel doing what he asked on Gaza aid

US President Joe Biden said Friday that Israel was heeding his demand to let aid into Gaza, a day after he warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a sharp shift in policy.

Asked as he left the White House whether he had threatened to stop military aid to Israel in the call with Netanyahu, Biden replied: "I asked them to do what they're doing."

Biden then brushed off a suggestion he might be abandoning Israel, saying: "Is that a serious question?"

US President Joe Biden stops to speak to the press before boarding Marine One as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House on April 5, 2024. Biden is heading to Baltimore to tour the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge

Iraq church gives hope for Christians after IS atrocities

With chants and ululations, Iraqi Christians celebrated the inauguration of a recently-restored Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul on Friday, years after jihadists turned it into a religious police office.

Around 300 faithful attended the first mass in the 80-year-old church of Um al-Mauna -- "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" after it was fully renovated. They prayed and took photos on mobile phones.

"I've been waiting for this day," 74-year-old former school director Ilham Abdullah said.

Around 300 faithful attended mass in the church of Um al-Mauna -- 'Our Lady of Perpetual Help'