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Masses of Palestinians began returning to their homes in northern Gaza in their thousands on Monday after Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.
It marks the first time that Palestinians have been allowed to reach northern Gaza since the outbreak of Israel's deadly 15-month long war on the enclave, currently enjoying a fragile ceasefire.
Israel had been preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the truce, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said late Sunday they would be allowed to pass after the new deal was reached.
Crowds began making their way north along a coastal road on foot Monday morning, carrying what belongings they could, images showed.
"This is the happiest day of my life," said Lamees al-Iwady, a 22-year-old who returned to Gaza City on Monday after being displaced several times.
"I feel as though my soul and life have returned to me," she said. "We will rebuild our homes, even if it's with mud and sand."
Hamas has also concluded that 25 of the Israeli captives it said it would release are still alive, with the rest have been confirmed as dead.
Meanwhile in Lebanon, the country's ceasefire will be extended until mid-February, Beirut announced, even though the Israeli military failed to meet a deadline to withdraw its troops.
Thousands of those displaced from their homes in south Lebanon also began returning home on Monday, a day after Israel also killed 22 people in the south of the country on the ceasefire withdrawal deadline.
The liveblog has now ended and will be back tomorrow at 9am GMT. You can read °®Âþµº's coverage of Israel's war on Gaza here.
US President Donald Trump has reiterated his plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt and Jordan after the two countries firmly rejected the proposal.
"I'd like to get them [Palestinians in Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption, revolution," he said to a press pool."
"When you look at the Gaza Strip, it's been hell for so many years," he added.
North Gaza needs 120,000 tents in order to accommodate the influx of returnees into the area following Israel's opening of the Netzarim Corridor which had cut the strip in two, according to Gaza's government media office speaking to Al Jazeera.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a call with Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday, the State Department said, with the call coming two days after a suggestion by President Donald Trump that Jordan and Egypt should take more Palestinians from Gaza.
"The Secretary and King Abdullah discussed implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the release of hostages, and creating a pathway for security and stability in the region," the State Department said in a statement. Trump's weekend remarks were not mentioned in the statement.
(Reuters)
An ongoing Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm has led to families being forcibly evicted from their homes, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The report said that Israeli forces occupied several buildings in the city, turning them into military barracks and forcing civilians out.
A Palestinian was killed in an Israeli strike targeting a bulldozer in Nuseirat, Gaza, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Monday.
According to the report the bulldozer was trying to remove a vehicle stuck in place.
Additionally, 5-year-old child, Nadia Mohammed Al-Amoudi was killed in Israeli shelling, with three others wounded, Wafa also reported.
In an acknowledgement of the reports Haaretz quoted the Israeli army as saying that "in a number of areas in the Gaza Strip, several suspects were identified approaching [Israeli army] troops and posing a threat to them."
The Director of outlet Electronic Intifada said he was in Istanbul after being released from a Swiss jail on Monday following his being arrested by Swiss police while on his way to a talk about Palestine.
In a statement released on Monday Ali Abunimah said that he spent three days and two nights in a Swiss prison, had been interrogated by Swiss defence ministry intelligence agents on Sunday, and said Swiss authorities did not list any charges against him.
"My 'crime'? Being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel's genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it," he proclaimed.
"Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime!," he added.
I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing at Istanbul. On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police. This is after three days and two…
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah)
UN experts are urging the international community to protect Palestinian rights amid Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank, and called for Israel to withdraw from the territory citing an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice.
"We are dismayed by the escalation of deadly violence sweeping through Jenin and the rest of the occupied West Bank," UN experts said, adding that "Israel's repression seems to have no end in sight."
Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese is included amongst the seven experts that issued the warning.
"Like other indigenous peoples before them, the Palestinian people seem to have been abandoned to their fate. We cannot let it happen; this would be the greatest failure of the human rights system," they said.
’s intensified military assault against the occupied marks a dangerous escalation against Palestinians – UN experts warn of catastrophic ramifications if States fail to intervene to protect the Palestinian people in line with int'l law.
— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts)
President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Axios reported on Monday, citing a US official.
Israel's new ambassador to the US has assumed his role in the position and called for bipartisan support to Israel.
"There is no doubt that a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people has returned to the White House. Together with the Trump administration, we will work to strengthen security and stability to formulate and effective regional strategy against the Iranian threat," he was quoted as saying by Haaretz.
Doctors without Borders, (MSF) has said that its team in Gaza has returned to the southern city of Rafah, saying the city is destroyed.
"People are trying to rebuild from the rubble. Rafah is destroyed, with homes, shops, streets and healthcare facilities in ruins and electricity and water systems damaged," MSF said in a press release.
"It's extremely difficult to come back to the same place that used to be full of life," said Nadia Abo Mallouh, who supports MSF medical coordinator that used to work in Emirati hospital.
"We couldn't even recognise the streets where Emirati Hospital was. It's sad seeing the hospital that used to bring life to earth totally empty, o signs of life, everything is destroyed," she added.
The government of Hamas in Gaza said Monday that "more than 300,000 displaced" Palestinians had returned to the territory's north after Israel's military authorised the returns from Monday morning.
The brief statement from the Hamas government's press office said the masses "returned today... to the governorates of the north" of Gaza.
The armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, released a video on Monday showing the Israeli female captive Arbel Yehud alive, before she is due to be released along with two other hostages later this week.
(Reuters)
In a speech aired on Monday Hezbollah's leader Naim Qassem said that the group would not accept any justification for the extension of Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, although he also said Hezbollah refrained from responding to Israeli violations of the ceasefire through the period.
"We pledged and preferred to be patient and not respond to Israeli violations [of the cease-fire], despite the feeling of humiliation."
He also made comments about Lebanon's new government, saying "things are going smoothly between Hezbollah, the President of the Republic, and the Prime Minister-designate."
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has withdrawn a threat to quit the government if Israel does not return to fighting in Gaza, several Israeli news sites reported on Monday.
Earlier this month, Smotrich opposed a ceasefire deal that aims to secure the release of nearly 100 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, arguing it endangered Israeli security and stopped Israel from achieving its war goals.
Smotrich stopped short of resigning but said if Israel agreed to a full end to the war before achieving its aims in Gaza - which include the complete destruction of Hamas - he and his party, Religious Zionism, would also leave the coalition.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Smotrich to stay in the coalition to keep the right wing government intact and the finance minister agreed, Israel's Yediot reported on Monday.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said on Monday that the group would not accept any justifications to extend the period given for Israeli troops' withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Israel said on Friday that its army's withdrawal would last beyond the 60-day period stipulated in the ceasefire agreement with the Lebanese group, saying the terms of the deal had not been fully enforced by the Lebanese state
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani welcomed on Monday the European Union's decision to lift sanctions on Syria, describing it as a "positive step" in a post on X.
EU foreign ministers agreed on Monday a roadmap to ease sanctions on Syria, the bloc's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said
A delegation from Palestinian group Hamas arrived in Cairo on Monday to discuss the implementation of ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, the group said in a statement
Israeli fire killed two people on Monday, increasing the death toll from one reported earlier, and wounded 17 in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement.
Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday, as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel said on Friday the terms of the ceasefire deal that ended its war with Hezbollah had not been fully enforced by the Lebanese state, meaning Israeli troops would stay beyond Sunday, without saying for how long.
The European Union will restart a civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.
"Everyone agrees that EUBAM Rafah can play a decisive role in supporting the ceasefire," Kallas said.
"Today, EU Foreign Ministers agreed to redeploy it to the Rafah Crossing Point between Gaza and Egypt. This will allow a number of injured individuals to leave Gaza and receive medical care," she added.
The health ministry in Gaza said on Monday the death toll from the war with Israel had reached 47,317, with numbers rising in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies are found under the rubble.
The ministry said hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 11 bodies in the past 24 hours - nine bodies recovered after the truce, and two new fatalities.
It did not specify how the new deaths occurred.
The ministry said the war had also left 111,494 people wounded.
Some Gazans have died from wounds inflicted before the ceasefire, with the health system in the Palestinian territory largely destroyed by more than 15 months of fighting and bombardment.
The ministry again reiterated its appeal for Gazans to submit information about dead or missing people to help update its records.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares outlined a proposal pushing the European Union to deploy a mission at the Rafah border crossing, in a bid to facilitate the movement of people and goods as the Gaza ceasefire takes place.
Albares said in his proposal that he would deploy personnel from Spain’s Civil Guard.
The mission aims to oversee operations at Rafah and assist in controlling the movement of people while normalizing checkpoint activities.
Albares told reporters that if the proposal is approved, Spain’s Civil Guard would participate in the mission.
Eight of the hostages due for release in the first phase of a truce deal between Israel and Hamas are dead, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Monday.
"The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives," Mencer told reporters. That means that of the 26 hostages yet to be freed under the first phase of the agreement, only 18 are still alive.
Israeli forces have detained around 20 Palestinians, including four children, during a raid north of Hebron, Palestinian media said.
The army reportedly stormed several neighbourhoods in Beit Ummar and detained 20 Palestinians. Troops raided homes and vandalised Palestinian belongings, the Wafa agency added.
Seven other Palestinians, including a female university student, from the town of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron.
Israeli authorities have arrested two army reservists for alleged espionage for Iran in return for financial compensation, a police spokesman said, as cited by Israeli media
Police say the primary suspect, Yuri Eliasfov, served in the Israeli army's Iron Dome air defence unit and passed along classified material obtained during his military service to his Iranian handler.
Contact between Eliasfov and the Iranian agent began in September 2024, according to Haaretz.
Months later, Eliasfov recruited his friend, Georgi Andreyev, into the espionage scheme, putting him in contact with the same Iranian agent.
The Palestinian health ministry said Monday two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, an attack confirmed by the Israeli military.
The Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement that two dead and three injured arrived at Tulkarem's Governmental Hospital "following the occupation's targeting of a vehicle in Nur Shams refugee camp", adjacent to the city of Tulkarem.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike, and said in a statement that "in a joint operation by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet (internal security agency), an air force aircraft launched an attack shortly ago in the Tulkarem area."
Official Palestinian news agency Wafa identified the two killed as Ramez Damiri and Ihab Abu Atwi, both residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp.
Some of the captives released from Gaza so far during the ceasefire had been held in Hamas tunnels for up to eight months straight, with little to no human contact, an Israeli general said on Monday.
Three Israeli civilians and four soldiers - all women - have been released so far in the ceasefire, which began on 19 January. In return, Israel has released 290 Palestinian prisoners
"Some of them told us that they've been in the past few months, that they've been through the entire time, in tunnels, underground," deputy chief of the Israeli military's medical corps, Colonel Dr. Avi Banov, told journalists online.
"Some of them were alone through the entire time they were there," he said. "Those who said they were together were in better shape."
The hostages said their treatment improved in the days leading up to their release, Banov said, when they were allowed to shower, change their clothes and received better food. They appeared to be in good condition and smiling in videos on the days of their release.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House next week, Israel’s Walla News website reported on Monday, citing three unnamed Israeli and US sources.
Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli fire killed one person Monday and wounded seven others in the south, hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was extended.
"Israeli enemy attacks as citizens attempt to return to their towns that are still occupied has led... to one dead and seven wounded," the health ministry said in a statement.
Hamas has handed over a list showing 25 captives alive out of the 33 due for release in the first phase of the Gaza deal, officials from the group tell Reuters,
The Palestinian population must not be expelled from Gaza, the German foreign ministry said on Monday after US President Donald Trump said Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians.
Asked for a reaction to Trump's comments, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Berlin shared the view of "the European Union, our Arab partners, the United Nations ... that the Palestinian population must not be expelled from Gaza and Gaza must not be permanently occupied or recolonised by Israel."
Israeli defence minster Israel Katz said "anyone who violates [the ceasefire] or threatens Israeli troops 'will bear the full cost".
"We will continue to firmly enforce the ceasefires in the north and south. Anyone who violates the rules or threatens [Israeli] forces will bear the full cost. We will not allow a return to the eality of October 7th," Katz said on X
Jordanian officials have rejected US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to "clean out" the Gaza Strip and move its residents to Jordan and Egypt.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that "all talk about an alternative homeland for the Palestinians is rejected and we will not accept it", and that Amman's "position is "firm" against the displacement of Palestinians from their land.
"Any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land will not bring security to the region," he said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Monday she does not believe Donald Trump has a "defined plan" to move Palestinians out of Gaza, but said she welcomed a debate on the territory's reconstruction.
The US president said on Saturday that he wanted Jordan and Egypt to take people from from Gaza, suggesting "we just clean out that whole thing" -- an idea quickly rejected by Palestinian leaders, the Arab League, Jordan and Egypt.
Meloni, who attended Trump's inauguration and hopes to position herself as a bridge between the US administration and the European Union, said it was "complex".
"Trump is right when he says that the reconstruction of Gaza is obviously one of the main challenges we face, and that to succeed, however, a great deal of involvement from the international community is needed," she told reporters during a visit to Saudi Arabia.
"As for the issue of refugees, I don't think, here again, that we are faced with a defined plan. I think we are rather faced with discussions with regional actors, who certainly need to be involved in this," she said.
Most of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by the Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel's far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir slammed Palestinians returning to northern Gaza as a "Hamas' victory" and "another humiliating part of the reckless deal", in reference to the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian group and Israel.
"This is not what "complete victory" looks like - this is what complete surrender looks like," he said on X.
"We must return to war - and destroy!"
פתיחת ציר × ×¦×¨×™× ×”×‘×•×§×¨ ×•×”×›× ×¡×ª עשרות ×לפי ×¢×–×ª×™× ×œ×¦×¤×•×Ÿ הרצועה ×”× ×ª×ž×•× ×•×ª ×”× ×™×¦×—×•×Ÿ של חמ×ס וחלק משפיל × ×•×¡×£ בעסקה המופקרת. כך ×œ× × ×¨××” ×´× ×™×¦×—×•×Ÿ מוחלט״ - כך × ×¨×ית ×›× ×™×¢×” מוחלטת.
— ×יתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir)
חיילי צה"ל ×”×’×™×‘×•×¨×™× ×œ× × ×œ×—×ž×• ומסרו × ×¤×©× ×‘×¨×¦×•×¢×” כדי ל×פשר ×ת ×”×ª×ž×•× ×•×ª ×”×לה.
×—×™×™×‘×™× ×œ×—×–×•×¨ למלחמה - ולהשמיד!
Israel has ordered the suspension of Israeli commercial flights to Paphos in Cyprus, Cypriot officials confirmed on Monday, for unspecified security reasons.
Domestic security agency Shin Bet ordered the suspension of flights to the airport, a terminal catering mainly to charter traffic on the western coast of Cyprus, late on Sunday night, reports from Israel said.
"The Republic of Cyprus is aware of the change in scheduling, for security reasons, of Israeli companies from and to Paphos airport. This happened some days ago," a Cypriot official told Reuters.
"Flights (from Israel) are continuing normally to Larnaca," the official added, referring to Cyprus's largest international airport.
Paphos is the smallest of Cyprus's two airports and abuts a military base slated for an upgrade by the U.S. According to its winter flight schedule available online, there are up to 10 flights a week from Tel Aviv and 7 flights a week from Haifa.
Dozens of displaced southern residents continue to flock to their homes in towns and villages in the western and central border areas, especially the city of Bint Jbeil.
The Lebanese army deployed heavily, according to Lebanese state news agency NNA, while UNIFIL forces were also conducting patrols. Civil defence teams also entered the areas for the first time and were searching for bodies.
Residents of south Lebanon on Sunday defied Israeli bans on returning to some 60 villages.
Under the agreement that ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel on 27 November, the Israeli army was supposed to have completed its withdrawal from southern Lebanon on Sunday, where only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will now be able to be deployed.
But Israel announced on Friday that the operation would continue beyond that date, saying the deal had not been fully implemented by Lebanon.
The White House said Sunday that the deadline for Israeli withdrawal had been extended until 18 February.
Yemen's Houthi leader vowed that his group would continue to take "comprehensive military action" in support of Palestinians, as it has done for the past 15 months.
In a speech aired on Al-Masirah TV, Abdulmalek al-Houthi told viewers that the group would also confront the US and "any aggression from it", adding that the US was "disturbed by their inability to suppress" the Houthis' military action against them in the Red Sea.
He also renewed his call for people to boycott US and Israeli goods, and condemned "US and Israeli hegemony" and efforts to turn Yemen "into a nation loyal to them".
He added that both were "working extensively to polarise and infiltrate the nation and to redirect discontent to those who are hostile to the US and Israel".
Israeli forces are still carrying out their raid of the West Bank city of Jenin for a seventh consecutive day, which has killed at least 16 people.
The Israeli army's bulldozers destroyed several infrastructure in central Jenin's roundabout on Sunday, the Wafa news agency said.
Several businesses were damaged or destroyed in the overnight raids, local sources said.
The latest victim was 26-year-old Abdul Jawad al-Ghoul, who succumbed to his wounds late on Sunday after being shot by Israeli forces, according to Wafa.
Hamas said on Monday that the return of Gazans to the north of the devastated territory after being forced to flee by more than 15 months of war was a victory against "plans" for the forced displacement of the Palestinians.
"The return of the displaced is a victory for our people, and signals the failure and defeat of the plans for occupation and displacement," the militant group said as thousands of Gazans streamed northward after Israel stopped blocking their passage. Hamas's ally Islamic Jihad called it a "response to all those who dream of displacing our people".