SHUJA’IYYA, Gaza Strip — Silence is the most startling sound in this town.
A month ago this region was home to some of the fiercest fighting in the two-year war in the Gaza Strip. But when NBC News visited an Israeli military outpost on Wednesday, the area appeared completely leveled and entirely devoid of people.
The soldiers manning the outpost are overseeing a delicate aspect of the now three-week-old ceasefire: the “yellow line,” a boundary of yellow blocks and flags laid out by the Israel Defense Forces that now mark the border between them and Hamas-controlled Gaza.
“Our job is to protect the lines, to make sure that Hamas doesn’t try and break those lines to carry out attacks against our troops, against Israeli civilians,” said IDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “From here we’ve seen Hamas violate the agreement almost on a daily basis, and some days, more than on a daily basis.”
Spent shell casings, still shiny from recent use, littered the outpost around Shoshani, who said IDF troops recently found a stash of Hamas weapons just beyond the Israeli side of the yellow line
But late Tuesday, the militant group handed over the body of the last American citizen hostage, Itay Chen, which it said had been exhumed in Shuja’iyya. And the IDF said in a statement on X Wednesday that it had received an additional body from Hamas via the Red Cross.
If the body received Wednesday is positively identified as one of the hostages taken from Israel, then six deceased hostages remain in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has said that it is struggling to recover their corpses amid Gaza’s destruction and the restrictions on movement imposed as part of the ceasefire.
Israeli leaders have accused Hamas of withholding them as leverage.
Gesturing toward the yellow line, Shoshani said troops are establishing yellow markers and flags to make the temporary boundary more obvious to civilians.
Among the sea of urban detritus that seemed to stretch for miles, the line itself could not be seen from the IDF outpost.
NBC News was able to accompany the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza but under conditions that prevent us from using images of military personnel or facilities.
Envisioned under the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which was brokered in part by President Donald Trump, the line has become a flashpoint as Palestinians have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of opening fire on people near the border that marks off more than half of the territory.
The United Nations human rights office said in a statement Tuesday that it had “recorded continued daily shootings by the Israeli military of Palestinians in the vicinity of the Israeli forces’ redeployment line in Gaza, which remains unclear on the ground.”
Some Palestinians say they have been unable to return to their homes on the Israeli side of the yellow line.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run enclave said Wednesday that 241 people have been killed since the ceasefire was reached and more than 600 injured.
Both sides have accused each other of violating the terms of the ceasefire and, at least twice since it went into effect on Oct. 10, Israel has retaliated for alleged violations with hundreds of airstrikes across Gaza.
Under the deal's second phase, an International Stabilization Force (ISF) will move into Gaza, including parts currently under Israeli control, allowing its forces to withdraw farther “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization.”
The ISF has yet to be formed, but the U.S. has drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution that, if approved, would authorize it for as long as two years, Reuters reported.
Shoshani however, appeared unconvinced that the violence would stop.
“Hamas is a terror organization,” he said. “Hamas will keep trying, and this is part of their mentality as a jihadi terror organization.”
