Rescuers recover dozens of bodies from Gaza rubble, Israel kills 10 in Jenin

he Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN welcomes a ceasefire in Gaza and calls for its full implementation and release of all hostages and detainees, its chair Malaysia said.

"We also call for a full, safe, rapid, and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians," it said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Israel has continued its West Bank raids in the early hours of Monday, storming the town of Rojib, east of Nablus, and the al-Ein camp, west of Nablus.

Palestinian media also reported raids and arrests in the town of al-Mazra'a al-Gharbiya, north of Ramallah.

The Israeli army has sent reinforcements to Jenin, according to Palestinian media reports.

Army bulldozers were also reported to have destroyed infrastructure outside the city's government hospital.

Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested a man wanted by Israel in Jenin, according to Palestinian media.

Reports named the man as Ahmed Abu Amireh, who was arrested in the town of Qabatiya in Jenin.

Israeli forces have shot three Palestinians at the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, Israeli media has reported.

Israeli police say that the attacker who wounded several people in Tel Aviv on Tuesday before being shot and killed was a foreign citizen.

Israeli media reports, citing unnamed security sources, said the attacker was a Moroccan citizen with US residency.

Three people were wounded in a stabbing attack on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, including one seriously, and the attacker was killed, Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom said.

The police, who said the attacker was "neutralised", did not comment on the nature of the attack. An AFP journalist saw the dead body of a man on the street.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 897 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Outgoing Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed "20,000 Hamas operatives" during 15 months of war in Gaza.

"The military wing of Hamas has been severely impacted," Halevi said during a televised address hours after he announced his resignation, saying Israel had killed the group's top leadership and "nearly 20,000 Hamas operatives".

The Israeli military had said earlier in the war that it killed two Hamas fighters for every one civilian, and last week said this ratio had changed to one civilian for each fighter.

Six people were killed on Tuesday in Syria's central Homs province, a war monitor said, as security forces launched a sweep of the area.

The security forces were operating in the area around the village of Ghour al-Gharbiya in western Homs "against the remaining militias supporting" ousted president Bashar al-Assad, the official news agency SANA reported.

The operation also targeted drug traffickers and smugglers, SANA said, citing a security source.

An "arms depot and munitions belonging to the ousted regime" were found, it added, reporting that violent clashes had broken out.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people had been killed in the Shifa-majority village, which lies close to the border with Lebanon.

The Observatory later specified that among those killed, two were "armed individuals" who died during clashes with security forces, while the other four were "civilians executed by local gunmen who entered the town" alongside the security forces.

UN chief urges 'maximum restraint' after Israeli operation in West Bank's Jenin: Spokesman

A war between Israel and Iran should be avoided, Saudi Foreign Minister said in Davos on Tuesday, adding that he did not see the administration of US President Donald Trump contributing to the risk of such conflict.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, who spoke during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Switzerland, also said he would visit Lebanon later this week, the first such trip in more than a decade.

The heads of Israel's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies travelled to Cairo on Monday for talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad to discuss the ceasefire and prisoner-exchange agreement, Axios' Barak Ravid reported today, citing an Israeli official.

The Palestinian Health Ministry now says that Israeli forces have killed eight Palestinians today in its ongoing raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

At least 35 others have been injured.

Israel has killed 47,107 Palestinians and injured 111,147 others during its 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip, according to updated figures released by the Gaza health ministry today.

Qatar's prime minister said Tuesday that a lasting peace in Gaza would depend on Israel and Hamas acting in "good faith", days into a fragile truce in the Palestinian territory mediated by the Gulf state.

"If they are embarking in this in good faith, this will last and hopefully will lead to phase two, will lead to a permanent ceasefire," Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He also added that Qatar was hoping to see the Palestinian Authority back in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to resign on Monday after the country's military chief quit over the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Lapid said he saluted military chief Herzi Halevi for stepping down and added: "Now, it is time for them to take responsibility and resign -- the prime minister and his entire catastrophic government."

Israeli military chief Major General Herzi Halevi, who resigned on Monday, said the country had not achieved all its military goals in Gaza.

"The objectives of the war have not all been achieved. The army will continue to fight to further dismantle Hamas and its governing capabilities, ensure the return of the hostages" and enable Israelis displaced by militant attacks to return home, he said.

Air France said on Tuesday it would resume flights to Tel Aviv at the weekend after a Gaza ceasefire agreement was announced between Israel and Hamas.

The airline was among several international carriers to suspend Tel Aviv flights in September over fears of escalating violence in the region. Several have resumed flights following the latest Gaza ceasefire.

The Lufthansa group -- whose airlines include flagship Lufthansa, Swiss and Eurowings -- and Easyjet have also said they plan to resume flights but not until February and June, respectively.

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire entered a third day on Tuesday, with humanitarian aid now arriving in Gaza and a first exchange of hostages.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the ongoing military raid in Jenin as "another step towards achieving … security" in the occupied West Bank, in a post on X, referring to it as "Judea and Samaria".

He also said it is part of Israel’s actions to counter the "Iranian axis" in the region, be it, the West Bank, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon or Syria.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said Tuesday they would limit their Red Sea attacks to vessels linked to Israel during the ceasefire in the Gaza war.

The Houthis have been attacking shipping in the vital waterway in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians since November 2023, weeks after Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history.

"We have informed international shipping companies that our military operations will focus solely on vessels linked to" Israel during the truce, a Houthi official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Houthi official also said his movement would halt its attacks against Israeli-linked vessels once every phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was implemented.

The head of the Israeli army Herzi Halevi will step down from his position on 6 March, according to Israeli media.

In a letter submitted to the defence minister, Halevi wrote that he is resigning "from the recognition of my responsibility for the IDF's failure on 7 October," Israeli public broadcaster Kan reports.

Halevi has been the military's chief of staff since January 2023.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has raised the death toll from Israel's ongoing attack on Jenin to seven, with at least 35 others wounded. 

Israel's ongoing military operation in Jenin is part of a campaign that will "change the security perception" in the occupied West Bank, the country's far-right finance minister has said.

At least six Palestinians have been killed and 35 wounded by Israeli forces since they began their attack on the occupied West Bank refugee camp earlier today in an operation dubbed 'Iron Wall' by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Today, we have begun changing the security perception in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] and in the campaign to eradicate terrorism in the region," Bezalel Smotrich wrote in a post on X.

"Iron Wall will be a strong and ongoing campaign against the perpetrators of terrorism to protect the settlements and the settlers, and the security of the entire state of Israel."

Six Palestinians have been killed and 35 others wounded by Israeli forces in Jenin since they began their military operation in the refugee camp earlier today, according to updated figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Earlier today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a "large-scale" military operation in the occupied West Bank city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a "large-scale and significant" military operation in Jenin dubbed 'Iron Wall' to "eliminate terrorism". 

"This is another step towards achieving the goal we have set, strengthening security in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]," the prime minister's office wrote on its Telegram channel.

The Israeli military, police and Shin Bet intelligence agency launched the operation in the refugee camp earlier this morning.

Qatar believes that the second prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel on Saturday will be smoother than the first, its foreign ministry spokesperson said today.

"Things are going positively... We believe that the next exchange will be smoother," Majed al-Ansari said.

The first prisoner swap went ahead on Sunday, but the ceasefire began late after a delay in Hamas's release of the list of names of those slated for release.

Hamas said earlier today that it would release four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday.

Qatar is confident that the deal it helped mediate for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas addressed all the major issues at stake in the war, the foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

"We are confident in the deal when it comes to the language of the deal, when it comes to the fact that we hashed out all the major issues on the table", Majed al-Ansari told a press conference, adding that Qatar believes both parties would implement the deal.

"Any breach from either side or a political decision... could obviously lead the deal to collapse," he said.

Al-Ansari's statements came a few hours after US President Donald Trump said he was "not confident" it would hold.

Hamas will release four Israeli women hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, a Hamas official told AFP this morning.

This will be the second such swap under the six-week ceasefire deal that came into effect on Sunday.

The first prisoner swap on Sunday saw Israel release 90 Palestinians in exchange for three captives held by Hamas in Gaza.

Over the course of the truce, Hamas will hand over 33 hostages and Israel will free around 1,900 Palestinian detainees.

An Israeli drone strike in Jenin in the occupied West Bank has killed at least one person, the Palestinian Health Ministry said this morning. 

The strike reportedly occurred earlier Tuesday morning after the Israeli army said it was beginning a counter-terror operation in the refugee camp.

This comes a few days after the Palestinian Authority struck a deal with the Jenin Brigades to end its six-week siege on the camp, which was aimed at cracking down on the militant group.

Syria has issued public tenders for oil and its products, Ghiath Diab, the oil minister in the interim government, told state news agency SANA on Monday.

Syria's 13-year civil war has crippled the country's energy sector, making it highly reliant on imports from Iran.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he thinks Saudi Arabia will end up joining the Abraham Accords, a series of normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab nations.

"I think Saudi Arabia will end up being in the Abraham accords," Trump told reporters following his inauguration in Washington.

US President Donald Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank will incite violence against Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday

"Lifting sanctions on extremist settlers encourages them to commit more crimes against our people", the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement, pointing to recent attacks by Israeli settlers throughout the West Bank that left 21 injured.

In one of his first actions after his inauguration yesterday, Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Hamas said on Monday it would next release hostages held in Gaza on Saturday, after an official with the Palestinian militant group had said they would be released a day later than expected.

Hamas is set to release the more than 90 hostages over the coming weeks as part of a complex ceasefire deal reached with Israel this month that could end the 15-month war in Gaza.

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The Israeli army injured two Palestinians in separate incidents in Gaza on Tuesday, despite the ceasefire with Hamas that came into force three days earlier.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported this morning that a fisherman were seriously injured by Israeli gunboats off the coast of Gaza City, and another was wounded by a drone in northern Gaza.

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa congratulated US President Donald Trump on his Monday inauguration, saying the American would "bring peace to the Middle East".

"We are confident that he is the leader to bring peace to the Middle East and restore stability to the region," Sharaa's administration said in a statement.

"We look forward to improving the relations between our two countries based on dialogue and understanding."

Turkey could end its trade boycott with Israel if it agrees to permanently end the war, the head of the country's Foreign Economic Relations Board said Tuesday.

Turkey has severed almost all trade ties with Israel in response to its brutal war on the Gaza Strip.

More than 900 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Monday, the UN said, exceeding the daily target outlined in the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.

"Humanitarian aid continues to move into the Gaza Strip as part of a prepared surge to increase support to survivors," the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA) said.

"Today, 915 trucks crossed into Gaza, according to information received through engagement with Israeli authorities and the guarantors for the ceasefire agreement."

Throughout conflict in Gaza, the UN has denounced Israel's heavy restrictions on the entry of aid into the enclave, which the International Criminal Court and human rights monitors say amounts to the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

US President Donald Trump said Monday he was not confident a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold, despite trumpeting his diplomacy to secure it ahead of his inauguration.

Asked by a reporter as he returned to the White House whether the two sides would maintain the truce and move on in the agreement, Trump said, "I'm not confident."

"That's not our war; it's their war. But I'm not confident," Trump said.

Trump, however, said that he believed Hamas had been "weakened" during Israel's brutal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023.