Live: Trump threatens Gaza residents with death as his team holds direct talks with Hamas about captives

Israel is considering releasing more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for maintaining a position in the Philadelphi Corridor, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported on Wednesday.

The report said Israel is weighing this as an option to extend phase I of the Gaza ceasefire deal. 

Israel and the US have been reluctant to enter phase II ceasefire talks. 

US President Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” that four captives' bodies were being released on Thursday by Hamas. 

“They think they’re doing us a favor by sending us bodies,” Trump said, refering to Hamas. “This is a vicious group of people.”

“At some point, somebody’s going to say, we got to do something about this,” he said. 

Egypt has rejected Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid's proposal for it to govern the Gaza Strip for eight years or longer.

“Any notions or proposals that circumvent the constants of the Egyptian and Arab stance… are rejected, and unacceptable,” Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Tamim Khallaf was quoted as saying by MENA news. 

The UN human rights chief has rejected plans for the annexation of Gaza or the forced transfer of Palestinian from occupied territories. 

“We must resist any normalisation of unlawful conduct, including proposals for annexation or forced transfer, which could threaten the peace and security of Palestinians and Israelis and of the wider region,” Volker Turk told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

China, at United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Tuesday, called for the full implementation of the ceasefire deal in Gaza and urged Hamas and Israel to move to Phase II of the talks. 

The US's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is likely travelling to the region next week to press for an extension of Phase I, as Israel and the US delay talks on post-war Gaza governance. 

Turkey's foreign minister told Al Jazeera they fear Israel will resume its war on Gaza once Hamas releases all the captives. 

“As it is known, an ethnic cleansing war was witnessed by the whole world; almost 60,000 civilian Palestinians were killed, most of them were women and children. This must never reoccur,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Al Jazeera. 

“However, it is feared that once all Israeli captives are released, Netanyahu will resume the war. There are deep concerns in this respect, and they give rise to constant threats within the region.”

Israel has confirmed that Hamas will hand over four captives’ bodies on Thursday night. 

Israel said the bodies will be returned as part of Phase I of the Gaza ceasefire. 

The Israeli prime minister's office said the handover would take place "without Hamas ceremonies". 

Hamas has used the ceremonies to display its military and organisational capabilities, which is seen as an embarrassment to the Israeli government that vowed to eliminate the group totally. 

Ex-footballer and prominent BBC presenter Gary Lineker is among 500 film, TV and media professionals calling on the BBC to reinstate the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. 

The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from BBC iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister.

Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary's 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government.

Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza's deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.

A letter sent to the BBC, seen by the Guardian, describes the film as "an essential piece of journalism, offering an all-too-rare perspective on the lived experiences of Palestinians".

The signatories said that Alyazouri was a civil servant concerned with food production. 

"This broad-brush rhetoric assumes that Palestinians holding administrative roles are inherently complicit in violence – a racist trope that denies individuals their humanity and right to share their lived experiences," the letter stated. 

A Palestinian teenager has succumbed to critical head injuries after Israeli forces shot him in the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya.

Wafa news agency reported that Hamid Fadl Muwafi, 16, from Qalqilya, was shot in the head by Israel's army near the separation wall in the West Bank. 

He was transferred to Qalqilya Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Wednesday afternoon. 

The armed wing of Hamas has confirmed in a statement that the bodies of Israeli captives Tsachi Idan, Itzik Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi and Shlomo Mantzur will be released on Wednesday evening.

Hamas will not hold a public ceremony for the handover of the bodies of four Israeli captives on Wednesday, a senior Hamas official told AFP. 

“The handover will take place without public presence to prevent the occupation from finding any pretext for delay or obstruction,” the unnamed official said.

Preparations are being made at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, south of the enclave, to receive released Palestinian detainees as part of the seventh batch of the prisoner swap deal.

“They are expected to arrive between 10pm (20:00 GMT) and midnight (22:00 GMT),” the Palestinian prisoners' media office said on Telegram.

Israeli police briefly detained and questioned Palestinian artist and comedian Nidal Badarneh on Monday over his stand-up shows, according to his family.

His home in Haifa was raided, and the Palestinian citizens of Israel was taken in for investigation under the pretext of "posing a danger to the public," the family told Arab48 news outlet.

The arrest followed calls from far-right Israeli groups to cancel his shows, including one in Nazareth last Friday.

Israeli officers also reportedly pressured gallery owners to cancel his performances without legal grounds.

Another show in Haifa was cancelled by police to "preserve the safety of the audience," with far-right groups claiming the show addressed Israeli detainees in Gaza.

His family believes the arrest is part of a broader campaign against Badarneh, fuelled by far-right incitement. They accused police of targeting him through threats to cancel his shows.

Read more: Israeli police interrogate Palestinian comedian over stand-up shows

A two-month-old Palestinian baby girl died on Wednesday due to severe cold in her family's tent in the Gaza Strip.

Wafa news agency reported that the baby girl died in a tent in the Shujaiyya neighborhood in Gaza City.

Health sources told Wafa that six children died due to severe cold on Tuesday, while others were in critical condition. 

Raafat Abu Funouneh, 34, a Palestinian from Gaza who had been detained in Israel's Ayalon prison, has died in captivity, Palestinian officials said. 

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner's Society said Abu Funouneh had been detained since 7 October 2023, along with his brother. They say he was wounded by prisoner authorities. 

He was recently transferred to a medical facility near Tel Aviv, until his death was confirmed on Wednesday.

The commission and PPS noted that Abu Funouneh did not suffer from health problems before his detention, and said that they held Israeli authorities responsible for his death. 

The number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees that have died in Israeli prisons since October 2023 has now risen to 60.