THESSALONIKI, Greece — Another series of unmarked graves — this one containing 14 individuals from Greece’s civil war era — have been dug up in a park in a suburb near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, local officials said Saturday. As in the previous tight cluster of unmarked burial pits excavated earlier this year in Neapolis-Sykies, the bodies belong to prisoners who were held in a nearby Byzantine fortress. The prisoners, alleged communists and sympathizers, were executed between 1946 and 1953, according to historians.

The Yedi Kule castle, also known by its Greek name Eptapyrgio (“seven towers”) was a prison where communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece’s 1946-49 Civil War and immediately afterward.

The burial pits were uncovered on the site of a municipal park undergoing renovation, including the installation of new benches. The graves were not far beneath the surface, Haris Charismiadis, the supervising engineer of the park project, told The Associated Press.

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The renovation project is not currently a priority for local mayor Simos Daniilidis. “We insisted on continuing the digging for the graves,” he said. Charismiadis, who said most of the current batch of bodies were found during the past week, is certain there are more people buried nearby, including, probably, under the tarmac of streets adjacent to the park. An archaeologist is assisting in the digging.

In contrast with the 33 bodies found earlier this year, which were lying side by side, the recently found bodies are jumbled, as if thrown randomly, and hastily, in a heap. Torsos and heads are separated.

When Yedi Kule prisoners were executed, their families were often not notified and they didn’t get to retrieve their bodies. Some found out about the fate of their loved ones from newspapers — one family happened upon the news while on the bus they had taken to the prison to bring their relative a fresh change of clothes.

LONDON — Vegetable likenesses of U.S. President Donald Trump and singer Dolly Parton and a papal “Cornclave” went on display Saturday at the Lambeth Country Show, an urban take on a country fair held annually in London’s Brockwell Park. The two-day show features sheep-shearing, livestock competitions, food, music and a vegetable sculpture contest that has attracted national renown for its quirky creativity.

This year, several sculptures referenced the recent papal election or movie on the same subject, including one featuring cardinals made of maize, titled “Cornclave.”

Other entries included Irish rap trio Kneecap in potato form, “Cauli Parton” in a movie-inspired tableau titled “9 to Chive,” a vegetable “Mo Salad” likeness of Liverpool soccer star Mohamed Salah and animated icons Wallace and Gromit made from butternut squash.

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Trump also got the butternut squash treatment, while some entries referred to local politics. In Lambeth, as in other parts of London, local authorities have turned to holding large concerts and festivals in parks as a way to raise money, to the chagrin of some neighbors.

“Wolf Hall” actor Mark Rylance, one of a group of local residents opposed to big events in Brockwell Park, is represented as “Mark Rylunch,” with an apple-carved head and satirical signs branding him a NIMBY (not in my backyard) campaigner.

“Every year, this is what we get so excited about, is the vegetable sculptures,” Country Fair regular Maddy Luxon said. “It’s just so unique and just so witty and we love the political ones.”

The remains of a Thai citizen who was kidnapped by Hamas-led fighters in the attack of Oct. 7, 2023, has been returned to Israel from Gaza after a military operation, Israeli authorities said Saturday. The status of Nattapong Pinta, an agricultural worker and married father, was previously unknown. His body was recovered from the Rafah area after a joint operation by the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

Nattapong had come to Israel “hoping to build a better future for himself and his family,” Katz said. He said he was killed in captivity by the Palestinian militant group Mujahideen Brigades.

“I send my heartfelt condolences to his wife, his young son, and his family,” Katz said.

Israeli authorities have also blamed the Mujahideen Brigades for the deaths of Judi Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai, an Israeli American couple whose bodies were returned to Israel this week, and of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, returned in February.

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The bodies of two more Israeli Americans — Omer Neutra and Itay Chen — are believed to still be in Gaza.

Nattapong was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7 attack, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet said in a joint statement. His remains were identified and Nattapong’s family and the Thai government have been notified, they said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar informed his Thai counterpart, Maris Sangiampongsa, of the details of the operation, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Israel will hold a ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport before the departure of Nattapong’s coffin for Thailand, Saar said.

The Thai Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel in the surprise attack on Oct. 7 and took another 250 hostage. Israel responded with a military campaign to eradicate the militants that has killed more than 54,000 people, Gaza health officials say.

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Nattapong was one of five workers kidnapped who were from Kibbutz Nir Or in the Negev Desert. He was 35 when he was taken, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and hostage advocacy groups (the kibbutz on Saturday said he was 36). Eleven other workers were killed in the attack.

Nattapong’s recovery followed “a long period in which there was a grave concern for his life,” the kibbutz said in a statement.

“His family, wife and son waited for him in pain and concern, ” it said. “Kibbutz Nir Oz shares the grief of the family and will accompany them at any time.”

The field crops team remembered him as a “diligent and loved person” who was always willing to help. “He left a mark on everyone who knew him and, of course, on all the field crops workers, who will always remember and honor him,” the team said in a statement.

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Many Thai nationals work in agriculture in Israel, some of them in military zones that are closed to other civilians. Forty-one Thai citizens were killed on Oct. 7, The Washington Post has reported. Five Thai nationals were released in January as part of a ceasefire exchange in which Israel freed 110 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the return of Nattapong’s body would bring a sense of closure to his family after “20 terrible and agonizing months of devastating uncertainty.”

“Every family deserves such certainty to begin their personal healing journey,” the forum said in a statement.

Families of the hostages have repeatedly urged Israeli officials to negotiate an end to the war in Gaza as the safest and quickest way to bring their loved ones home. Israeli leaders have vowed to continue the war until the remaining hostages are handed over and Hamas is destroyed.

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Saturday was the second day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a time of prayer, visiting with family and feasting. In Gaza, already gripped by hunger, the celebration this year has been limited by shortages of meat, sugar, flour and vegetables. What food can be found in the market is prohibitively expensive for most Gazans, Palestinians say.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the new aid system backed by Israel and the United States, said it would close temporarily on Saturday after its rollout last month was marred by chaos and violence.

The organization, launched after an Israeli blockade on aid from March to May, distributes aid from remote sites guarded by armed security contractors in areas controlled by the Israeli military. But it has struggled to manage crowds. More than 50 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid between Sunday and Tuesday, the deadliest period since it started operating, according to Nasser Hospital, the Gaza Health Ministry and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

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Palestinians say Israeli forces are deployed around distribution points and have fired at Palestinians trying to reach them. The IDF has said it has fired “warning shots” toward people approaching Israeli forces but denies targeting civilians. On Wednesday, the IDF said the areas were “closed military zones” outside of operational hours.

Israel continues to launch airstrikes on Gaza. The IDF in recent days has reiterated evacuation orders for areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where much of the population has been squeezed. The last two hospitals operating in the area, Nasser and al-Amal, have not been ordered to evacuate, though they fall in or close to the evacuation zone, according to the World Health Organization.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Greenland next weekend, the Danish prime minister’s office said Saturday — a visit by a high-profile European Union leader in the wake of U.S. expressions of interest in taking over the mineral-rich Arctic island. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and the French leader said they will meet in the semiautonomous Danish territory on June 15, hosted by Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

The visit by Macron, whose nuclear-armed country has one of the EU’s strongest militaries, comes as U.S. President Donald Trump hasn’t ruled out using force to carry out his desire for the resource-rich and strategically located island to become part of the United States.

While the issue of U.S. interest in Greenland has drifted from the headlines in recent weeks, Nielsen said in late April that such comments by U.S. leaders have been disrespectful and that Greenland will never be “a piece of property” that anyone can buy.

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In the statement Saturday, Frederiksen acknowledged the “difficult foreign policy situation in recent months” but praised “great international support” for Greenland and Denmark.

“President Macron’s upcoming visit to Greenland is yet another concrete testament to European unity,” she said, alluding to the membership of France and Denmark in the 27-member-country EU.

Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in the rubble of a destroyed house, following an Israeli airstrike on the Al Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City, on June 7. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

JERUSALEM/CAIRO – The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on June 7, as Israeli airstrikes killed 55 people, according to local medics.

Mr Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian militant group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Mr Katz said.

His family in Thailand has been notified.

Mr Nattapong, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israeli-backed aid group, said on June 7 it was unable to distribute assistance to Palestinian civilians, blaming threats by Hamas, which Gaza’s dominant militant group denied.

Israel’s military said Mr Nattapong had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national.

Thai agricultural worker Nattapong Pinta was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on Oct 7, 2023. PHOTO: HOSTAGE AID WORLDWIDE/X

Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.

The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.

Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

Medics in Gaza said 55 people in total were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the enclave on June 7.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded by airstrikes in the Gaza City district of Sabra in the northern Gaza Strip on June 7, local health authorities said.

More than one missile landed in the area. The target seemed to have been a multi-floor residential building, but the explosion damaged several other houses nearby, according to witnesses and media.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment. It later warned people to evacuate the nearby district of Jabalia, saying it was going to strike there after rockets were launched by militants in the vicinity.

Palestinians inspecting the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Gaza City, on June 7. PHOTO: REUTERS

The Palestinian Health Ministry said on June 7 that Gaza’s hospitals only had fuel for three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or Cogat, the Israeli defence agency that coordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had uncovered “an underground tunnel route, including a command and control centre from which senior Hamas commanders” operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.

It added that it had located several bodies of militants whose identities were “under examination”.

The Israeli government and military said last month it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief, but Hamas did not confirm his death.

Aid distribution halted

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on June 6 after the GHF said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticised by humanitarian organisations for alleged lack of neutrality, said it was unable to distribute any humanitarian aid on June 7 because Hamas had issued “direct threats” against its operations.

“These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,” the GHF said in a statement, in which it also said it intended to resume aid distribution “without delay”.

A Hamas official told Reuters he had no knowledge of such “alleged threats”.

Makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, on June 6. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

On June 4, the GHF suspended operations and asked the Israeli military to review security protocols after Palestinian hospital officials said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near distribution points between June 1-3.

Eyewitnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on June 3 it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian “suspects” who were advancing towards their positions.

The Israeli military said on June 7 that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to the UN and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the Oct 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave. REUTERS

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