Israel to free Palestinian women and children prisoners in coming hours under Gaza deal

Israeli forces have reportedly opened fire on multiple vehicles near the town of Abasan, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa TV, a media outlet operated by Hamas.

No casualties have been reported so far.

The incident marks the latest breach of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which is set to expire on Saturday unless an extension is agreed upon.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his government had good talks on Gaza and that he thought it was coming up with solutions to problems in the Middle East.

Trump made the comments at a joint White House press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he was asked whether phase two of the ceasefire in Gaza would come to fruition.

"I think we're going to come up with some pretty good solutions, but phase one is almost complete," Trump said.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah observation post in southern Lebanon on Thursday, calling its presence "a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon".

"Earlier today (Thursday), activity inside an observation post belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation was identified in the area of Aainata in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement, adding that it "was struck by the IAF (air force)."

The strike came a day after the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike targeting a "significant" Hezbollah militant in Lebanon, where state media reported one person was killed and another wounded.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Thursday that Israeli forces would indefinitely remain in what he called a "buffer zone", in southern Lebanon.

Israel's army chief said he takes full responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, after the findings of an internal military probe released on Thursday.

"The responsibility is mine. I was the commander of the army on October 7th, and I also bear the full responsibility for all of you," Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, who had already resigned last month citing the October 7 "failure", said in a video statement released by the military.

The Wafa news agency reports that Israeli forces have stormed the city of Salfit.

According to Wafa, Israeli troops patrolled the city’s streets, distributing threatening leaflets to residents.

Additionally, Wafa stated that Israeli forces raided commercial stores near the town of Qaraweh Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, detaining one Palestinian worker during the operation

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, during his meeting with Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of the Palestinian group Fatah, emphasized the urgent need for unity and reconciliation among all Palestinian factions.

"The process must be led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. All Palestinians must stand together against Israel's expansionist policies," Fidan stated, according to a post on X by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

An Israeli military probe published Thursday found that Hamas' October 7 attack happened in three waves and at its height more than 5,000 people entered Israel from Gaza.

"The first wave... included more than 1,000 Nukhba terrorists who infiltrated under the cover of heavy fire," a summary of the inquiry provided by the army said, adding that a second wave included 2,000 militants and third wave was characterised by the arrival of hundreds of militants, along with several thousand civilians.

"In total, approximately 5,000 terrorists infiltrated Israeli territory during the attack," the report said.

The Israeli military acknowledged it was "overconfident" and had misconceptions about Hamas' military capabilities ahead of the October 7, 2023 attack, a senior military official said Thursday as the army released a report on the events.

The official said the army had not maintained "a comprehensive understanding of the enemy's military capabilities" and that it was "overconfident" in its knowledge.

Jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan's call for the Kurdish militant group to disband was an "historic chance" to bring to an end their decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, the German foreign ministry said Thursday.

"An end to the violence is the important first step, but further steps are needed... This includes, above all, respecting and guaranteeing the cultural and democratic rights of Kurds in Turkey," a ministry spokesman said in a statement.

"As the federal government, we are ready to do what we can to support such a process."

The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah observation post in south Lebanon on Thursday, calling its presence "a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon".

"Earlier today (Thursday), activity inside an observation post belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation was identified in the area of Aynata in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement, adding that it "was struck by the IAF (air force)."

مراسلة «#الأخبار»: العدو الإسرائيلي يستهدف منزلاً بين بلدتي #عيترون و #عيناتا pic.twitter.com/zsLGUCVq2H

— جريدة الأخبار - Al-Akhbar (@AlakhbarNews) February 27, 2025

Iraq's Kurdistan regional president Nechirvan Barzani on Thursday welcomed jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan's call for the Kurdish militant group to lay down its weapons and dissolve.

"We warmly welcome Ocalan's message... and we call on the PKK to adhere to and implement this message," Barzani said on X.

"We in the Kurdistan region fully support the peace process," he added, offering his support to ensure its success.

The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails, Nael Barghouti who spent more than four decades behind bars, walked free on Thursday under the latest hostage-prisoner swap of a fragile Gaza truce.

Barghouti spent 45 years behind bars, including 34 of them consecutively, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group.

He arrived in Egypt on Thursday, after being expelled from the Palestinian territories upon his release.

Barghouti was first arrested in 1978 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an Israeli officer and attacks on Israeli sites. At the time, he was a member of Fatah, the movement of current Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a rival to Hamas.

Barghouti was freed once before, in 2011, as part of an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in return for an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas. He was then placed under house arrest in Kubar, in the occupied West Bank. He was arrested again in 2014, and defected from Fatah to join Hamas in prison.

The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi said the historic announcement made on Friday by PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan for the Kurdish militant group to disband was irrelevant to the SDF.

"Just to make it clear, this is only for the PKK, nothing related to us in Syria," he said, according to quotes translated and carried by Reuters.

"If there is peace in Turkey, that means there is no excuse to keep attacking us here in Syria," Abdi said, as his forces continue to fight Turkish-backed militias in Syria.

Turkey has been engaged in a decades-long insurgency with the PKK and has for years fought other Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq, all of whom Ankara considers to be terrorist groups.

Two people were killed on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on Hermel in the northenmost part of the Beqaa region in east Lebanon, the health ministry said.

It comes a day after another deadly airstrike on Hermel killed an alleged Hezbollah operative.

The Baalbek-Hermel governorate, as well as southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut were heavily hit by Israel in the war which ended in late November.

بالفيديو: آثار الغارتين الإسرائيليّتين على #الهرمل pic.twitter.com/Mp5Xng4Rwa

— Voice of Lebanon 100.3 100.5 (@sawtlebnan) February 27, 2025

More than 200 Italian Jews have signed an appeal against "ethnic cleansing" in the Palestinian territories, provoking strong media reaction and dividing the country's Jewish community.

Writers, academics, philosophers and journalists were among the 220 signatories of the text, which was published in daily newspapers La Repubblica and Il Manifesto.

It claimed that US President Donald Trump "wants to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Meanwhile in the West Bank the violence of the Israeli government and settlers continues".

"Italian Jews say no to ethnic cleansing. Italy must not be an accomplice," they added.

The call aims to "bring out a clear and strong Jewish voice of disapproval", said the Jewish Antiracist Laboratory, a group of young Jewish-origin Italians which is behind the petition. The organisation said it was "opposed to the annexation of Palestinian territories by Israel and all forms of anti-Semitism".

The International Criminal Court will urgently continue its investigation into crimes committed in Palestinian territories, or by Palestinians, the prosecutor's office said on Thursday, despite the withdrawal of an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.

The withdrawal of the warrant for Deif means there are now no public ICC arrest warrants for any Palestinian militants connected to the October 7, 2023, attacks.

On Thursday, the prosecutor's office said the probe continued and it would not hesitate to seek arrest warrants for other suspects "if and when it considers that the threshold of a realistic prospect of conviction has been met".

"Addressing the situation as an urgent priority, the office is conducting an active investigation, and advances multiple and interconnected additional lines of inquiry," it said in an e-mail.

In November, judges at the ICC also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza.

Israeli drone strikes have reportedly targeted an area in Hermel in the northenmost part of the Beqaa region in east Lebanon, local media has reported.

The first strike reportedly included two missiles, and then a third missile hit the same area. It was not immediately clear what the target was and if there were any casualties.

Israel claims it has been striking Hezbollah personnel and weapons, vowing to block any attempts for the Shia group to rebuild itself after the devastating war last year.

Israel attacked a car in Hermel on Wednesday, killing an alleged Hezbollah operative.

#غارات إسرائيلية على #الهرمل!https://t.co/7OO1HAw0iI pic.twitter.com/8qiUtoEi5p

— Lebanon Debate (@lebanondebate) February 27, 2025

A vehicle rammed into pedestrians in northern Israel on Thursday in what police described as a "suspected terror attack," leaving several people wounded.

"There is suspicion that this is a terror attack. Police forces successfully intercepted a suspicious vehicle, apprehending a suspect suspected to be responsible for the ramming" at the Karkur junction south of the city of Haifa, police said in a statement.

Earlier reports said the ramming took place near Hader and wounded eight people, including three critically.

Turkey will be "free of its shackles" if the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) lays down arms and dissolves, ruling AK Party Deputy Chairman Efkan Ala said on Thursday after the group's jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on it to disband.

In the first response from President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party, Ala said the government expected the PKK to comply with Ocalan's call.

Jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan on Thursday called for his Kurdish militant group to lay down its weapons and dissolve itself in a landmark declaration read out in Istanbul.

"All armed groups must lay down their arms and PKK must dissolve itself," he said in a declaration read out by a delegation of lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited him in prison earlier in the day.

More than 40 Palestinian women and children, recently released from Israeli prisons after a delay, have arrived in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, according to news reports.

The New Arab will provide further updates.

A polio vaccination drive in Gaza reached more than 600,000 children, the head of the World Health Organization announced Thursday, saying a ceasefire allowed previously-missed children to receive a dose.

After the disease resurfaced in Gaza for the first time in over 20 years, paralysing a 10-month-old child last August, two vaccination rounds took place in September and October.

They reached more than 95 percent of the children targeted, with the necessary two doses of oral vaccine.

But environmental samples from two sites, collected in December 2024 and January 2025, found the poliovirus was still circulating.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on January 19 and a fresh vaccination campaign targeting 591,000 children under 10 was launched on Saturday with 1,600 vaccination teams and more than 1,200 "social mobilisers".

The five-day campaign concluded on Wednesday, reaching 602,795 children aged under 10, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

"The ceasefire allowed the health workers to reach more children than during previous vaccination rounds in 2024, including the children who may have been missed due to population movement and those who were unreachable due to insecurity," he said.

"Ending polio hinges on fully vaccinating every last child and ensuring uninterrupted access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene, and proper nutrition. But the medicine all children in Gaza need is lasting peace."

The West Bank is facing an "alarming spillover" of the Gaza war, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday, with dozens killed since Israel expanded its operations there last month.

"The West Bank is becoming a battlefield," Philippe Lazzarini warned on X, saying that "more than 50 people, including children, have been reported killed since the Israeli forces' operation started".

"This must end."

Lazzarini said that the "destruction of public infrastructure" in the West Bank and that "bulldozing roads and access restrictions are common place".

"People's lives have been turned upside down, bringing back traumas and loss," he said, saying that "around 40,000 people have been forced to flee their homes especially in refugee camps in the north".

"Fear, uncertainty and grief once again prevail."

With Palestinian camps lying "in ruins", Lazzarini added that "more than 5,000 children who normally go to UNRWA schools have been deprived of education, some for over 10 weeks now".

"Patients cannot access healthcare, families are cut off from water, electricity and other basic services," he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday instructed Israeli negotiators to head to Cairo for talks on the Gaza ceasefire, his office said.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed the negotiation delegation to depart for Cairo today to continue the talks," the statement from his office said, without providing details of the discussions.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that Israeli forces were "staying indefinitely" in a buffer zone on the border with Lebanon, adding their deployment there was "situation-dependent".

"There is a buffer zone (on the border with Lebanon), it wasn't easy but I stood my ground, and we received a green light from the United States, we gave them a map, and we are staying indefinitely - this is situation-dependent, not time-dependent," Katz said at a conference, according to a statement issued by his office.

Israel has kept some troops in five strategic positions in southern Lebanon after pulling out the bulk of its forces on 18 February.

The Lebanese government is calling on the US, which mediated the Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire deal, to pressure its ally Israel to withdraw all its troops.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Thursday to work "relentlessly" to bring back all the captives held in Gaza after Hamas returned the bodies of four captives.

"To the dear families, we share in your pain," Netanyahu said in a statement. "I pledge that we will continue to act relentlessly until we bring everyone back. Until we return all our sons and daughters home."

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has congratulated Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on forming a new government, the Gulf kingdom's foreign ministry said Thursday.

"The crown prince wished the Lebanese prime minister success and the brotherly Lebanese people further progress and prosperity," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Lebanon's parliament passed a vote of confidence on Wednesday in Salam's new government.

Saudi Arabia has recently renewed its interest in Lebanese politics after years of keeping its distance over Hezbollah's influence, which has waned significantly following last year's war with Israel.

The Egyptian Red Crescent Society has launched the 'Support Gaza, Praying Tarawih' campaign through which donations can be made to provide prayer tents to replace mosques destroyed by Israel in the war.

"Contributions can be made through multiple channels, including online platforms, phone services, text messages, and banking options," reported Cairo Scene.

Israel released 596 Palestinian inmates on Thursday and is due to free another 46 women and minors in exchange for the return of the bodies of four captives held in Gaza, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said.

Israel has so far released 596 prisoners in the latest swap, and "there are 46 left (to be released) in exchange for the return of the bodies, all women and minors from Gaza" arrested after October 7, 2023, the group said in a statement.

President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday that Israel had a "moral obligation" to bring back all captives from Gaza following the return of four bodies by Hamas.

"Our hearts ache upon receiving the bitter news of the identification of Ohad Yahalomi, Tsachi Idan, Itzik Elgarat, and Shlomo Mansour," Herzog said in a statement, adding that "the return of our brothers' bodies from captivity underscores our moral obligation to do everything in our power to bring back all the hostages".

French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday called on Hamas to stop its "barbarism" after confirmation that French-Israeli captive Ohad Yahalomi, seized in on 7 October 2023, was among four bodies returned to Israel.

Macron said on X that he shared the "immense pain" of Yahalomi's family and that "Hamas's barbarism must end", adding that "France lost 50 of its children in the October 7 abomination".

An Israeli captive group has said the remains of all four captives returned by Hamas have been identified.