Updates: Israel returns 30 bodies to Gaza, bombs areas across Strip

For more on the trauma facing Palestinian children in Gaza, see our story here.

We also have this story from the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians are experiencing a surge in Israeli settler attacks during the annual olive harvest season.

Or if you’re interested in what’s happening in Lebanon, check out all the latest developments as Israel launches more attacks on the country despite a ceasefire, here.

This live page will be closing soon, but before we go, here are today’s top developments:

• Israel returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to health authorities in Gaza, completing an exchange after Hamas handed over the remains of two captives.
• Despite the ceasefire, the Israeli army carried out air strikes across Gaza, killing at least three people across the Strip.
• Israel has carried out two air strikes on southern Lebanon despite an ongoing ceasefire there, killing at least one person.
• The United Nations was able to deliver 840 pallets of “life-saving medical supplies” to Gaza, including insulin and surgical kits, but a senior official said the health system in the enclave “continues to face a significant challenge in addressing the immense need faced by people in Gaza”.
• Ahmed Radwan, the Palestinian Civil Defence’s media officer in Rafah, southern Gaza, told Al-Aqsa TV that more than 10,000 Palestinians were trapped under the rubble.
• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that this year’s olive harvest season in the occupied West Bank has seen the “highest level of damage” by settlers in five years.
• Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi condemned far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for reiterating his call for the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel.
• The US’s highest-ranking military officer met his Israeli counterpart and took a helicopter tour over Gaza, US military sources told Al Jazeera.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the WHO helped evacuate 19 Palestinian children and one adult from the Strip, including four children who will get cancer treatment via the US-based St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“The rest of the patients will be receiving specialised care in Jordan,” Tedros said on social media.

“We are deeply grateful to St Jude and the government of Jordan for their continued support in treating patients from Gaza.”

Yesterday, @WHO has completed another medical evacuation of 19 child and one adult patient from #Gaza. Four child patients are in need of cancer treatment that they will receive from the @StJudeResearch programme. The rest of the patients will be receiving specialised care in… pic.twitter.com/2QDuTDW7Hx

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 31, 2025

This is the second article in a two-part series. You can find the first part, explaining how public relations firms have been aiding Israel, here. 

The filings of the freshly minted Christian marketing agency Faith Through Works speak to Israel’s new public relations focus.

Registering as a foreign agent of Israel with the US Department of Justice, Faith Through Works –  one of at least three PR agencies contracted by Israel to improve its image in the United States – says (PDF) it has been hired to “Combat low American Evangelical Christian approval of the Nation of Israel”.

It’s not only within the US’s evangelical base that polls show Israel to be losing ground. Widespread protests across US cities and college campuses, allied to surveys from the University of Maryland and others, indicate that Israel is also losing US support across Gen Z, the left and within its traditional allies in mainstream US politics and the evangelical right.

Read more here. 

The Cologne-based Muslim Coordination Council says that providing medical assistance and protection to traumatised children in Germany is a moral duty.

The children must receive medical help and protection in Germany, the group’s spokesperson, Ali Mete, said in a statement, adding that anything less would contradict their understanding of humanity and compassion.

“These children are not only physically wounded but also deeply traumatised,” said Mete, adding that several German cities and civil society organisations have declared their readiness to care for wounded children and their families.

Gustavo Petro has pledged to support reconstruction efforts in Gaza, saying the South American nation wants to help with prosthetics for injured Palestinian children and adults.

In a social media post after talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Colombian president also thanked Egypt for its role in Gaza mediation efforts.

“We will help Egypt and the mediating countries, including the United States, in the effort to achieve peace in Palestine,” Petro said.

Dialogo con el presidente de Egipto en El Cairo, Abdelfatah Al Sisi, sobre:

1. La participación de Colombia con su fuerza pública y sus recursos en la reconstrucción de Gaza. Queremos que Colombia ayude a través de su estado y su sociedad con prótesis para extremidades de… pic.twitter.com/jTwyuTg21q

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 31, 2025

Fifteen-year-old Yamen Samed Hamed was killed in an Israeli raid in Thursday in the occupied West Bank town of Silwad.

Israeli forces reportedly blocked an ambulance from initially reaching the boy injured in the raid that used live rounds, tear gas, and stun grenades.

Moein al-Hattu’s home has been ripped apart, its cinder block walls blown out into the street and a dusty grey bomb hangs menacingly from a damaged pillar, its tip resting on a crushed chest of drawers.

Weighing more than a tonne, the munition was dropped during an Israeli air attack on Gaza City but has not exploded – yet.

“I’m living in terror and unable to remove it,” al-Hattu told the AFP news agency, as children wandering through the rubble paused to marvel at the threatening intrusion.

He has been unable to find anyone in Gaza with the skills or equipment to remove the giant bomb.

“The relevant authorities, whether the civil defence or the municipality, say they can’t remove it. Who can I go to and complain to?” he demanded. “If it had exploded, it would have caused massive destruction and destroyed at least five to six houses.”

After two years of war, the ruined cities of Gaza, a densely packed territory home to more than two million Palestinians, are littered with military debris, including unexploded, still-deadly munitions – which children often touch, oblivious to the danger.

At Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, six-year-old Yahya has lost part of his right hand and is all but covered in bandages. His grandfather Tawfiq al-Sharbasi sits by him, keeping vigil and strokes his hair.

“These are children. What did they do wrong? They were playing,” he said.

Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kmeil says Israel’s decision to extend its violent raids in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in the occupied West Bank until January 31 reflects a disregard for international law, Wafa reported.

According to a statement, Kmeil said that the extension of the operation only prolongs crimes against residents of the camps that have endured forced displacement.

The governor called on the international community and human rights organisations to stop Israel from continuing its attacks in the governorate and its camp, and to hold them accountable for their ongoing assaults.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says it has distributed water to about 250,000 displaced Palestinians across Gaza.

But it stressed that “access to water must be safe, sufficient, and within reach for everyone”.

As we’ve been reporting for weeks, Palestinian families are struggling to access sufficient food, water and other supplies as Israel maintains strict curbs on deliveries of humanitarian aid.

In #Gaza, UNRWA teams work tirelessly to help families access the water they need. They continue operating water wells and desalination systems and deliver water by truck.

During the first half of October, UNRWA distributed water to around 250,000 displaced people across the… pic.twitter.com/aBMKJnQUQs

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 31, 2025

That’s according to Ahmed Radwan, the Palestinian Civil Defence’s media officer in the southern city of Rafah, who spoke to Al-Aqsa TV about continuing efforts to find missing people across the enclave.

According to excerpts of the interview shared by the rescue agency on Telegram, Radwan said more than 200 Palestinians have been killed and about 600 others wounded since the ceasefire deal came into effect this month.

“Civil defence teams are unable to rescue all cases and injuries due to a lack of equipment and limited availability of medical supplies,” he said, noting that heavy machinery is needed to recover bodies from under the rubble.

Radwan also said Israel is “deliberately” targeting rescue workers in violation of international law.

For generations, olive trees have been a symbol of life and resilience for Palestinians – deeply rooted in their land and culture.

But after two years of war, Gaza’s olive trees – once a vital source of income and identity – have been burned, uprooted, or buried beneath the rubble.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reports.

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has condemned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “truly catastrophic”, adding that “significant pressure must be applied on Israel”.

During a joint news conference following his meeting with Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara, Tsahkna thanked Turkiye for its efforts regarding the situation in Gaza.

Tsahkna reiterated that Estonia continues delivering humanitarian assistance to Gaza through the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and other organisations.

He added that to sustain peace efforts in Gaza, other countries must also continue to apply pressure.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the Trump administration to apply the US’s own laws and cut off weapons transfers to Israel over its military assault in Gaza.

CAIR’s call comes a day after The Washington Post reported on a US government watchdog report that found “many hundreds” of possible human rights violations by the Israeli military. The report said it would take years to investigate those potential breaches.

Under what’s known as the Leahy Laws, the US government must cut off assistance to foreign military units that commit gross human rights violations. But Washington has refused to apply the rules to Israel.

“Our nation has been stained by the support of administrations of both major parties for these atrocities and the fact that many of them were carried out with American weapons. This must end,” CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

“The Leahy Law must be applied to the genocidal Israeli government. No more American weapons should be used to slaughter innocent men, women and children.”

For many in Gaza, Israel’s genocidal war will never really end. Even if the fragile United States-brokered ceasefire is successful in halting attacks on the besieged enclave, which it so far has not been, booms will still echo in the minds of Palestinians who survived more than two years of brutal conflict.

Fifteen-year-old Abed al-Aziz Abu Hawishal has seen scenes no teenager should ever witness, including a “massacre” by Israeli forces.

“Bodies were flying over our house. I saw a woman without a head, and I even stepped on bodies as I ran, terrified for my life,” he said.

Read our story here.

Soumaya Hamdi was planning for the family holiday she would soon be taking with her husband when she received a text message that changed everything. “Is it true that Sami is being abducted?” a friend asked.

She had called her husband, British-Tunisian commentator and journalist Sami Hamdi, earlier that day to check in on him, as he travelled around the US on a speaking tour discussing Israel’s war on Gaza.

When he didn’t answer, Soumaya had assumed he was at a speaking engagement. Instead, he had been detained by US immigration authorities, news that came as “a complete shock”, she told Al Jazeera.

Sami had been stopped at San Francisco International Airport. Unbeknown to him, his visa had been revoked by US authorities two days earlier after a pressure campaign by anti-Muslim and pro-Israel social media influencers.

The detention of the 35-year-old critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has sparked a legal battle. His case is also the latest in what Muslim advocacy groups describe as a campaign to silence pro-Palestinian voices in the US through immigration enforcement.

Read more here.

Guterres’s spokesperson also has noted that “Gaza has been the deadliest place for journalists in any conflict.”

Speaking to reporters during a briefing at UN headquarters in New York, Stephane Dujarric said the UN secretary-general is calling “for independent and impartial investigations into the killings of journalists”.

Guterres also warned “that impunity is an assault on press freedom and a threat to democracy itself”, Dujarric said. “When journalists are silenced, we all lose our voice.”

More than 275 journalists and media workers – mostly Palestinians – have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023.