Israeli army says the body of a soldier abducted by Gaza militants on October 7 has been recovered

The Israeli military says the body of a soldier abducted by Gaza militants on October 7 has been recovered and taken to Israel.

The military said the rescue operation took place overnight and that his name would not be published at the request of his family.

“The soldier fell during the October 7th massacre and he was taken hostage in the Gaza Strip,” it said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the soldiers involved in the operation and said he would continue to exert every effort to bring back to Israel all “of the remaining hostages and bodies”.

There are still 108 hostages remaining in Gaza being held by militant groups.

About a third of these are thought to have died, with the fate of the others unknown.

The army has not confirmed how many are alive or dead.

Hamas and Israeli leaders are continuing talks through mediators in a push to secure a hostage deal and bring an end to 10-month old war.

Deputy CIA director David Cohen said on Wednesday the fate of a ceasefire deal was “largely a question that is going to be answered” by the leader of the Palestinian militant group.

Cohen did not refer to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by name.

The Israeli side was showing seriousness in the negotiations, Cohen told an intelligence and national security summit in Washington DC.

Mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been working to strike a deal between the sides and prevent a broader regional war.

On those efforts, Cohen said: “There may be episodes where people would step back from the brink, but I don’t think anybody can be confident that that effort to control escalation is something that ... any party in that region” can control.

Israeli forces sent tanks deeper into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and launched strikes across the enclave as they battled Hamas-led militants, killing at least 34 Palestinians on Wednesday, according to medics.

Residents of Khan Younis said Israeli tanks made a surprise advance into the centre of the city, and the military ordered evacuations in the east, forcing many families to run for safety while others were trapped at home.

Palestinian health officials said the Israeli strikes in Khan Younis killed at least 11 people.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, where at least a million people were sheltering, an Israeli air strike killed eight Palestinians near a school housing displaced families, medics said.

In Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, journalist Mohammed Abed-Rabbo was killed along with his sister in an Israeli attack on their house, medics said.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said Abed-Rabbo’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire to 172 since October 7.

In recent days, Israel has issued several evacuation orders across Gaza, the most since the beginning of the nearly 11-month-old war, prompting an outcry from Palestinians, the United Nations and relief officials over the shrinking of humanitarian zones and the absence of safe areas.

The Israeli military said it ordered the evacuation in areas where Hamas and other militants staged attacks, including rocket firing into Israel.

The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters were engaged in clashes with Israeli forces in different areas across the territory, firing anti-tank rockets and mortar fire.

More than 40,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The crowded enclave has been laid to waste.

Most of its 2.3 million people have been displaced multiple times and face acute shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian agencies say.