Middle East latest: Israel says soldier thought to have been taken hostage is now presumed dead

The Israeli military said Monday an Israeli American soldier who was believed to have been captured alive by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack was killed that day and his body taken into the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is still holding around 100 hostages inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. The Biden administration says it is making another push for a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages, after nearly a year of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas repeatedly stalled.

Diplomats see a potential opening after last week’s ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Hamas that began launching rocket attacks and trading fire with Israel the day after the October 2023 attack.

The fragile ceasefire has held despite repeated Israeli strikes that have angered Lebanese officials but not yet triggered a response from Hezbollah. Israel says it has acted to thwart potential attacks.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage. More than 100 hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.

Israel’s ongoing retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,429 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Here’s the Latest:

Israeli drone strikes reported in Lebanon days after fragile ceasefire

BEIRUT —Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Monday one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike that hit a motorcycle, while the Lebanese army said that a soldier was wounded in an Israeli strike on a military bulldozer at an army base.

The Israeli military said that it carried out a series of strikes in Lebanon on Sunday and Monday, including one in the same area where the soldier was said to have been wounded. It said it struck several military vehicles in Lebanon’s Bekaa province as well as strikes on Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.

The incidents underscored the fragility of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah reached after nearly 14 months of cross-border fighting.

Since the ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday, Israel has struck several times in response to what it says have been ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. Lebanon has accused Israel of violating the deal but so far Hezbollah has not resumed its rocket fire.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday rejected accusations that Israel is violating the tenuous ceasefire agreement, saying it was responding to Hezbollah violations.

In a post on X, Saar said that he made that point in a call with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot. France, along with the U.S., helped broker the deal and is part of an international monitoring committee meant to ensure the sides uphold their commitments.

Israel says that it reserves the right under the deal to respond to perceived ceasefire violations.

Israeli American soldier thought to have been taken hostage is now presumed dead

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Monday an Israeli American soldier who was believed to have been taken hostage alive on Oct. 7, 2023, is now presumed to have been killed during Hamas’ attack and his body taken into Gaza.

Neutra, 21, was a New York native who enlisted in the Israeli military and was captured when Hamas attacked southern Israel. Neutra’s parents, Ronen and Orna, led a public campaign while he was thought to be alive for their son’s freedom. They spoke at protests in the U.S. and Israel, addressed the Republican National Convention this year and kept up ties with the Biden administration in their crusade to secure their son’s release.

In a statement announcing the death, the military did not say how it came to the conclusion over Neutra’s fate. He was one of seven American Israelis still held in Gaza, four of whom are now said to be dead. Hamas released a video of one, Edan Alexander, over the weekend, indicating he was still alive.

In late summer, Hamas killed Hersh Goldberg-Polin, another prominent Israeli American hostage, along with five other captives, whose bodies the Israeli military recovered.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are still held inside Gaza, around two-thirds believed to be alive.

Iranian-supported Iraqi militias back Syrian government’s counteroffensive against insurgents

Iraqi militias supported by Iran deployed in Syria on Monday to back the government’s counteroffensive against a surprise advance by insurgents who seized the largest city of Aleppo, a militia official and a war monitor said.

Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo last week and the countryside around Idlib before moving toward neighboring Hama province. Government troops built a fortified defensive line in northern Hama in an attempt to stall the insurgents’ momentum while jets on Sunday pounded rebel-held lines.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus Sunday and announced Tehran’s full support for his government. He later arrived for talks in Ankara, Turkey, one of the rebels’ main backers.

Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and military supporters and deployed military advisers and forces after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and additional forces crossed the border to support them, said the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

According to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria overnight through the strategic Bou Kamal. They were expected to deploy in Aleppo to support the Syrian army’s pushback against the insurgents, the monitor said.

US Navy destroys Houthi missiles and drones targeting American ships in Gulf of Aden

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Navy destroyers shot down seven missiles and drones fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the warships and three American merchant vessels they were escorting through the Gulf of Aden. No damage or injuries were reported.

U.S. Central Command said late Sunday that the destroyers USS Stockdale and USS O’Kane shot down and destroyed three anti-ship ballistic missiles, three drones and one anti-ship cruise missile. The merchant ships were not identified.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement and said they had targeted the U.S. destroyers and “three supply ships belonging to the American army in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”

Houthi attacks for months have targeted shipping through a waterway where $1 trillion in goods pass annually over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon. A ceasefire was announced in Lebanon last week.

The USS Stockdale was involved in a similar attack on Nov. 12.

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Read more of the AP’s coverage of the Middle East wars: https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars